To receive a verbal update from Dr Helen Pelendrides, Chair, and Sarah Price, Accountable Officer, Haringey Clinical Commissioning group on:
· Where the CCG is in terms of becoming statutory;
· Priorities for the coming year;
· Work which is taking place across the borough;
· Relationships with the acute sector;
· Any work which has been done considering the impact of welfare changes on residents health;
· Any other areas which the CCG wishes to update the Panel on.
Minutes:
The Panel received an update from Sarah Price, Chief Officer and Dr Pelendrides, Chair.
Points noted include:
· The CCG is currently preparing for authorisation.
· An Authorisation visit took place in November, this was conducted by a group of external peers who had no experience of Haringey.
· There are a few areas left which they need to reassure Commissioners on by the end of January (12 out of 117).
· Final result on authorisation will be available in February and will icnldue any conditions which are attached to the authorisation.
· They need to achieve a balanced budget and currently aim to do this by the end of 2013/14. The deficit has gone from £17million last year to £7 million.
· The Integrated Care Strategy is a current area of focus which is being worked on with the Local Authority.
Discussion points noted include:
· Concerns about whether the savings which have been made are sustainable or whether they will come back in more acute forms.
· The anticipated overspend this year is mainly due to the acute sector.
· There is currently a ‘cap and collar’ contract in place with the North Middlesex Hospital. This will end at the end of the financial year.
· There is a lot of pressure to change services and bring them closer to people’s homes.
· Changes are about transformation rather than stopping services being provided.
· The Integrated Care reablement pilot which has been running in the North East of the borough is being extended to the central cluster. This pilot includes a weekly teleconference with all practitioners about a persons care and to plan their next phase of care.
o The next stage is to find people at risk and intervene before they go to A&E.
· There is a link between long term conditions and mental health.
· Mental health is a priority in the Health and Wellbeing Strategy and work is being done around Long Term conditions.
· NCL are looking into concerns raised about Harmoni.
· NCL are the contract holders and are in the process of procuring a new Out of Hours service to begin in April. This may or may not be Harmoni.
· Noted that Helena Kania, LINk, sits on the Out of Hours monitoring group and that Harmoni are currently performing at 100%.
o There are concerns that Harmoni is being taken over by Care UK, who do not have as good performance statistics.
· The Primary Care Strategy work includes looking at improving access to GPs more generally. The CCG is working with North Middlesex and Whittington Health on Urgent Care Centres.
· GP appointments are not directly in the control of the CCG.
· The LPC noted that they have experience of people saying that they are unable to get a GP appointment and therefore intend to go directly to A&E.
· The Panel queried how many GP practices were still operating 0845 phone numbers, they were informed that this is not under the control of the CCG. However, there was anecdotal evidence that the number was decreasing.
· The CCG is working with the MHT to look at improving access for GPs to mental health care services. This is a prioritised piece of work over the next few months.
· GPs do not always feel confident managing low level mental health needs as they are unsure that they will get the support that they need.
· The Health and Wellbeing Board is looking at welfare reform changes and their impact alongside work on health inequalities.