Present:Roy Adams, Friends of Burnham on Sea Hospital (Chair)

Minutes of the North Sedgemoor Health Forum held on Tuesday 11 February 2014, in the Conference Room at Burnham on Sea Community Hospital, at 6.30pm

Present:Roy Adams, Friends of Burnham on Sea Hospital (Chair)

Brenda Adams, Friends of Burnham on Sea Hospital

Roy Bangs, Axbridge PPG Chair

Andy Cole, Deputy Divisional Manager, Somerset Partnership

Angela Conway, Clinical Lead, Burnham Hospital

Tony Deahl, Chairman, Friends of Burnham Hospital

Simon Emary, Chair, Highbridge PPG

Sandra Few, Chair, Brent Area Medical Centre PPG

Margaret Grizzell, Patient, Public and carer Involvement Manger, Somerset CCG

Stan Howlett, Highbridge PPG Member

Mary Kelly, Burnham PPG and League of Friends

Wayne Lewis, Head of Community, MH & Joint Commissioning, Somerset CCG

Christine Lincoln, PPCI Administrator, Somerset CCG

Eilleen Tipper, Lay Member, Somerset CCG

Allan Weare, Chair of Cheddar PPG

Lucy Watson, Director of Quality and Patient Safety, Somerset CCG

Julie White, Home Manager, Hillview Nursing Home

1WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION

1.1Roy Adams welcomed everyone to the meeting and introductions were made.

1.2Apologies were received from Dr Matthew Dolman, Michael Bainbridge (Somerset CCG), Phil Brice (Somerset Partnership), Jane MacPherson (Autism Somerset), Lucy Nicholls (Somerset Partnership), Jane Fitzgerald, Matthew Dolman, Pat Barthram and Claire Landers

2MINUTES OF MEETING HELD ON 6 AUGUST 2013

2.1The Minutes of the meeting held on 6 August 2013 were agreed as a correct record.

3MATTERS ARISING

3.1Roy Adams said no feedback had been received from members following the presentation by Tim Archer on Transforming Somerset and said it is very important that members of the health forum give feedback.

3.2Christine Lincoln said Tim Archer would present the evolving 5 Year Strategy at the next meeting, which is the next stage of Transforming Somerset and she would email the information to everyone. There are two questions for feedback which are:

• Do you agreed with this?
• Are there any points missing?

3.3Feedback on this can be sent to .

ACTION: Christine Lincoln to circulate information on the 5 Year Strategy

4MENTAL HEALTH STRATEGY

4.1Wayne Lewis, the Head of Community, Mental Health and Joint Commissioning for Somerset CCG talked about the Mental Health Strategy and the consultation taking place which is asking people to rank the top ten priorities for mental health in Somerset. Wayne also talked about the dementia element of mental health which is included in the strategy.

4.2There followed a discussion about children with mental health problems and development issues and whether teachers are trained to pick up on these. Wayne Lewis said the service is working with Social Services who are supporting teachers, parents and families and giving them the right help. Some mental health problems begin very early and teachers are not experienced in dealing with these issues. Teachers are being educated to give them the skills and advice needed so they can identify children who need help and intervene at the right time.

4.3Eilleen Tipper said teachers should be able to refer children to CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service). They also need to have a basic understanding of all the Tiers 1, 2, 3 and 4 and accept responsibility to monitor emotional development.

4.4Stan Howlett asked about the small number of patients whose care takes the biggest percentage of the budget. Wayne Lewis said we have to make the best use of the resources available, so we have to identify which projects and services would be the best ones to invest in so savings are made in other places.

4.5Mary Kelly asked whether there were enough professional mental health staff to cope with the number of people who have mental health issues. Wayne said if we look at the crisis responses in mental health it is very good service and the staff are coping well. However patients who are not at crisis level are not getting the help they need to stop them from getting worse. If we act now we have the opportunity to change and ensure people get the help they need before it becomes a crisis and working with people before their problems increase helps save money in the long run and it is a good investment.

4.6Wayne stated that there is a project working with six young people who have emerging mental health issues and would go on to develop serious mental health conditions. This is a two year funded project which is being monitored very closely.

4.7Wayne talked about working with whole families units not just children when there are mental health problems in families and children are being abused. In more serious cases children can be taken away from their family. Putting children into care can solve one problem but creates a whole lot more.

4.8Margaret Grizzell said that there is a programme called the Family Focus Programme where families are given weekly support from one agency instead of three or more to help them progress and get out of the cycle of dependency. Margaret Grizzell suggested that a representative from the Family Focus Programme in Highbridge is invited to a future meeting.

ACTION: Christine Lincoln to invite a representative from the Family Focus Programme in Highbridgeto a future meeting

4.9Roy Adams said there are people with mental health problems in Highbridge that need to be addressed ranging from child abuse to dementia in the older generation. Burnham on Sea has an ageing population and this is the biggest risk to Somerset as a whole. He suggested holding an awareness event for mental health as more time is needed to discuss it. Wayne said that each time he has given this presentation the discussions keep increasing as there is so much to include in the Mental Health Strategy. Mary Kelly pointed out that memory problem are not an issue just for the older population, she attended an education day at the Mulberry Centre and there were patients in their 50’s who had difficulties as well.

4.10Allan Weare suggested including dementia in the health event. Andy Cole said he would welcome a mental health discussion session and would be happy to contribute. Roy Adams agreed it would be a good way forward if there was some funding availableto book a venue and we need to ensure there are representatives from all of the PPGs in North Sedgemoor and invite the Doctors from the Mulberry Centre. It was agreed that an event would concentrate on mental Health and dementia would be covered separately.

4.11Eilleen Tipper said it would be good to develop some small peer support groups of users and carers. In previous years there have been The Sun Groups in in Somerset which were an important support network for users and their families.

4.12Wayne Lewis encouraged everyone to look at and complete the mental health consultationor go to the link to the on-line version which can be completed.

ACTION: Christine Lincoln to circulate the link to the Mental Health Strategy

5SPEAKING OUT – HEARING THE PATIENT VOICE FROM COMPLAINTS

5.1Lucy Watson, the Director of Quality and Patient Safety gave a presentation on improving NHS complaint handling.

5.2Simon Emary said we live in a society where someone has to take the blame but we need to move on from that culture. Lucy agreed and talked about the peer review process, with the Patient Association. The group is meeting again at the end of February to see how the complaints handling has progressed since last year. Lucy continued saying that GPs are involved in reviewing complaints and she has three GPs on her team who are included in the peer review process.

5.3Mary Kelly asked about the complaints process and whether complainants are offered face to face meetings or contacted by phone. Lucy said people were offered meetings to help resolve their complaints. Sometimes a response may not have addressed the whole issue so a local resolution meeting is held. A meeting will also be offered if a complaint has been complicated. Talking through an issue helps people to understand what really happened and how to resolve the issue or not.

5.4Eilleen Tipper said serious incidents are recorded and investigated. Complaints are good training opportunities as some people will only make a complaint to highlight an issue and ensure it does not happen to anyone else.

5.5Lucy said complaints raised with Somerset CCG are reported to the Governance Committee but not at public Board meetings.

5.6Roy Adams said he used to deal with complaints for another organisation and as well as complaints they received complements which are just as important. He then talked about litigation claims. Lucy said staff do worry about how they should apologise and the NHS Litigation Authority has recently published a leaflet on apologising which sets out a very clear framework for supporting patients.

6BETTER CARE FUND

6.1Lucy Watson then gave a short presentation on the Better Care Fund.

6.2Tony Deahl asked whether the £38 million was from the NHS or Social Services Budget, as a similar exercise was carried out ten years ago. Lucy said the Local Authority have had to make huge cuts over the last few years and there will be more cuts over the next three. To date they have not had to make cuts in Adult and Children Social Care. Tony said there are two areas being looked at which are the initial response, stopping people going into hospital and domiciliary care for people who are being discharged. Lucy said it is about NHS money which is in a pooled budget to jointly commission services to support social care to achieve agreed outcomes. Adult Social Care still have to provide the same services and this budget has to be used to create services that are more integrated being led by the NHS and Social Care.

6.3Mary Kelly said she was a community carer when it was run by the council. If a patient needed help Mary would be called and would get there as quickly as possible, although she would never have enough time to do all the jobs required to help patients. However, now that this is run by private companies there are too many costs involved and they only allow fifteen minute slots for each patient.

6.4Lucy said we have good services to build on. Andy Cole said the two areas under significant strain due to an ageing population are memory assessment services anddistrict nursing services.

7ANY OTHER BUSINESS

7.1Eilleen Tipper said she had spent 48 hours in the Musgrove Park Beacon Centre hearing about liaison in cancer care and a number of issues had arisen. Patient feedback reports have shown a lack of communication between patients and professionals. Some patient feedback has described issues that could potentially have been raised as a complaint, but due to positive experiences a complaint has not been made. Eilleen wondered if we should be looking at ways of getting patient feedback after discharge to start putting together a set of information packs on how practice and systems can be improved and suggested this could be a topic for a future meeting.

8DATE OF NEXT MEETING

8.1Roy Adams said the next meeting is on 20 May 2014 and will be held at Axbridge Surgery. In the meantime we will look at running an evening on Mental Health.

8.2He thanked everyone for attending and Lucy Watson and Wayne Lewis for their presentations.

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