TASK AND FINISH GROUPS PROJECT PACK

1. INTRODUCTION

The “Review of Health and Social Care in Wales” concluded, “the current configuration of health service places an unsupportable burden on the acute sector and its workforce. …More acute beds are not a viable or effective long-term response. Actions to reconfigure provision, release acute capacity and raise productivity are needed alongside a re-balancing of the system to meet need earlier in the care pathway…”

The North Wales Health Planning Forum has identified the following challenges to the current services that the project needs to address:

  1. Clinical governance issues in continuing to provide such widely dispersed services
  2. The need to respond to respond to employment law and contract changes
  3. The capacity of Trusts to meet projected demand and expectation within the resources available
  4. Estates issues relating to health and safety issues and backlog maintenance

In May 2005 “Designed for Life” required each Region to come up with a sustainable framework for the delivery of acute services by the end of March 2006.

2. PROJECT PRINCIPLES

The project board has developed a set of project principles to underpin the design of services and to support the works of the project. These are included in the pack and have been approved by the Board of each of the Local Health Board and Trusts.

3. PROJECT STRUCTURE

A copy of the project structure is included in the pack along with a copy of the Terms of Reference of all component parts of the project including the Reference group and the Project Board as well as the Task and Finish Groups.

4. TERMS OF REFERENCE

5. MEMBERSHIP OF THE GROUPS

The membership of each of the groups is also included in the pack.

Membership of the Project Team:

-Andrew Butters

-Mary Auty

-tbc

6. FRAMEWORK OF OPTIONS

The production of a sustainable plan for the delivery of the acute services across the North Wales into the future by March 2006 sets a challenging agenda and timetable. A detailed timetable is included. The Task and Finish Groups have been asked to produce interim report by the beginning of October and final reports by the beginning of December. This is to allow time for discussion and consultation on the work of the Task and Finish groups by the Reference Group. It will also allow time to pull together the output of the Task and Finish Groups into a coherent plan for North Wales and to consult on this.

In order to facilitate this and underpin the broad work of the Task and Finish Groups, the Project Board has produced a Framework of Options and some Questions/Criteria against which to judge or rank the options. The setting out of these options and criteria does not preclude the development of new options or sub-options during the work of the Task and Finish Groups. Each Task and Finish Group is required to consider the options as laid out against the questions/criteria put forward and to judge how well the option sits against the criteria. The schedule of criteria contained in the pack indicates which questions must be addressed by which groups, although all groups are free to consider all the questions.

7. PROCESS

The Project team has developed a framework of options, question/criteria and toolkit as basis for the work for Task and Finish groups. However, if during the course of work the group or groups consider that significant options have been overlooked or there are material sub-options, then they are free to put this to the project team for inclusion in the work. Similarly, if significant questions and criteria have been omitted their inclusion within the project structure can be suggested to the Project Team. Likewise, the toolkit which has been developed might not be exhaustive and members of the Task groups may be aware of significant tools which should be included to help evaluate the options. Again, this should be brought to the attention of the Project Team for inclusion in the overall structure.

The Task and Finish groups are asked to work through options/criteria using the toolkit provided and reach a conclusion as to which is their preferred option and the reasons for reaching this conclusion. An initial view on this will be required as an interim report by the end of September. This will then be shared with Project Board and the Reference Group and feedback given to the Task groups. The groups then have till the end of November to reach a final conclusion on their preferred option.

8. TIMETABLE

A detailed timetable is included within the project pack, including details of meeting dates of all groups.

In can be seen from the timetable that the work of the Task and Finish groups is designed to feed Project Board meetings which will then feed into North West North Wales Health Planning Forum and Reference Group meeting.

It is intended that the Task and Finish Groups meet four times on each occasion for half a day. There will be two sets of meetings

  1. Clinical sub-groups meetings comprising
  2. Clinical Futures Group
  3. Emergency Access
  4. Surgical services
  5. Diagnostics
  6. Obstetrics and Paediatrics
  7. Long Term Medical Conditions
  8. Mental Health
  1. Non clinical sub-groups
  2. Clinical Futures Group
  3. Needs Assessment
  4. Transport
  5. Estates
  6. Human Resources
  7. IM&T
  8. Finance & VFM

It is felt that having the groups all meet together is both easier to manage and arrange administratively but will also provide benefits to the group, especially if some of the time is used for a plenary session so they will be aware as to what the other groups are doing and be able to consider areas of overlap for duplication.

The basic structure for the meetings will be

  1. Meeting 1: Consideration of the project pack and discussion of key issues and how to address them
  2. Meeting 2: Production of initial recommendations and preferred option
  3. Meeting 3: To receive feedback on the initial recommendations from the Reference Group and Project Board
  4. Meeting 4: To produce final recommendations and the preferred option

Meeting dates for clinical Task and Finish groups are as follows:

26 August

23 September

28 October

25 November

They will be held at the Optic centre in St Asaph.

9. TOOLKIT

A toolkit has also been developed to support the groups in working through the options and questions. This is contained in the pack.

10. CONCLUSION

The intention is that the above should be as clear as straight forward as possible. Should you require any further clarification please do not hesitate to contact Andrew Butters at 01978 72 78 72 in the first instance.

Andrew Butters

July 2005