Agenda and minutes

Please note that this meeting may be filmed or recorded by the Council for live or subsequent broadcast via the Council’s internet site or by anyone attending the meeting using any communication method. Although we ask members of the public recording, filming or reporting on the meeting not to include the public seating areas, members of the public attending the meeting should be aware that we cannot guarantee that they will not be filmed or recorded by others attending the meeting. Members of the public participating in the meeting (e.g. making deputations, asking questions, making oral protests) should be aware that they are likely to be filmed, recorded or reported on. 

By entering the meeting room and using the public seating area, you are consenting to being filmed and to the possible use of those images and sound recordings.

The chair of the meeting has the discretion to terminate or suspend filming or recording, if in his or her opinion continuation of the filming, recording or reporting would disrupt or prejudice the proceedings, infringe the rights of any individual or may lead to the breach of a legal obligation by the Council.

The Chair referred Members present to agenda Item 1 as shown on the agenda in respect of filming at this meeting, and Members noted the information contained therein’.

Apologies for lateness had been received from Cllr Mike Hakata.

The Chair will consider the admission of any late items of urgent business (late items will be considered under the agenda item where they appear. New items will be dealt with as noted below).

Dominic O’Brien, Scrutiny Officer, informed the Panel that, while the minutes of the previous meeting had been available on the Haringey Council website for over a week, they had not been included in the agenda pack for this meeting. The minutes from an earlier meeting had been included instead in error. The correct minutes had since been circulated to the Panel and were tabled under Item 6.

A Member with a disclosable pecuniary interest or a prejudicial interest in a matter who attends a meeting of the authority at which the matter is considered:

(i) must disclose the interest at the start of the meeting or when the interest

becomes apparent, and

(ii) may not participate in any discussion or vote on the matter and must withdraw from the meeting room.

A member who discloses at a meeting a disclosable pecuniary interest which is not registered in the Members’ Register of Interests or the subject of a pending notification must notify the Monitoring Officer of the interest within 28 days of the disclosure.

Disclosable pecuniary interests, personal interests and prejudicial interest are

defined at Paragraphs 5-7 and Appendix A of the Members’ Code of Conduct.

Cllr Pippa Connor declared an interest by virtue of her membership of the Royal College of Nursing.

Cllr Pippa Connor declared an interest by virtue of her sister working as a GP in Tottenham.

To consider any requests received in accordance with Part 4, Section B, Paragraph 29 of the Council’s Constitution.

None.

To approve the minutes of the previous meeting.

The minutes from the meeting dated January 6^th 2020 were tabled and their accuracy was agreed by the Panel.

Cllr Connor noted that under item 40 of the minutes it had been recorded that she would be meeting with Sarah Mansuralli, Director of Strategic Commissioing at North Central London CCGs, for a discussion about St Ann’s Hospital. The meeting had since taken place and Cllr Connor reported that she had enquired about the lack of reablement beds on the St Ann’s Hospital and whether more beds could be added to the new site so that local people can be treated locally. Cllr Connor had also since sent an email to the Mayor of London, as the site is part-owned by the GLA, to ask him to facilitate a further discussion on this matter and was currently awaiting a response.

AGREED: That the minutes of the meeting held on 6^th January 2020 be approved as an accurate record.

An opportunity to question the Cabinet Member for Adults & Health, Cllr Sarah James, on developments within her portfolio.

Cllr Sarah James, Cabinet Member for Adults & Health, opened this item with a brief introduction, reporting to the Panel that the budget had been passed at the Full Council meeting the previous evening. This had included:

·         provisions to pay the London Living Wage to care staff and others;

·         investment in autism and learning disability services at Waltheof Gardens;

·         investment in the Linden Road scheme, providing accommodation for people with autism, learning difficulties and challenging behaviour, which would be coming on stream shortly;

·         investment in mental health provision at Canning Crescent.

Cllr James then took questions from the Panel on issues within her portfolio.

Helena Kania asked what measures the Council had put in place to protect workers who come into contact with the public and at hubs such as at Waltheof Gardens from the coronavirus. Cllr James said that health advice was being distributed, including by text message from GP practices. The national general health advice is being followed which includes, for example, to self-isolate if displaying any symptoms of the virus. Asked about whether extra provision of hand gels and disinfecting stations would be provided at certain places, Beverley Tarka, Director of Adults and Health, said that Will Maimaris, Director of Public Health, is in close contact with Public Health England and that the whole issue of additional sanitisers had been discussed within the Council. However, at this stage, the conclusion was reached that this was not a proportionate response and could create additional anxiety within staff. The Council was following the Department of Health guidelines and referring staff to these guidelines on the advice of Public Health England. London ADASS (Association of Directors of Adult Social Services) is currently conducting a survey of all London Boroughs to establish what additional support is required for home care providers.

Cllr da Costa commented that the Council’s response was, in his view, a different interpretation of the Public Health England advice which he said was encouraging companies to ensure that people in offices clean and disinfect their hands.

Asked about how Same Day Emergency Care (SDEC) in hospitals might impact on Council services, given that some of these patients being sent home will require more social care, Cllr James said that this will required joined up care and would be addressed through the Borough Plan and partnership working. John Everson, Assistant Director for Adults, added that the Council is working closely on this with the CCGs, Acute Trusts and the A&E Delivery Boards. Any impact on discharge would need to be worked through with the Council as discharge wouldn’t be possible without certain Council facilities such as Single Point of Access, Reablement services or intermediate care beds. Work was ongoing on this issue but it was not an area that had been identified as a risk at this stage. Helena Kania expressed concern that statistics might not be collected on what happens to patients after SDEC and on whether they require further hospital treatment. John Everson responded that the Council  ...  view the full minutes text for item 51.

To receive an overview on quality assurance and service improvement within adult social services, covering both the Council’s internal quality assurance process and external mechanisms.

John Everson, Assistant Director for Adults, introduced the report on this item on the Quality Assurance and Service Improvement infrastructure within the department. Key points included that:

• The internal focus is regulated through the Quality Assurance Board which checks on both the practice within the service and the quality of the service that is delivered to service users and carers.
• This enables the team to look in more detail at individual practice through case file audits and to interrogate complaints and compliments, which helps to inform service improvement plans.
• There is a more robust service improvement management infrastructure recently put in place to focus on areas that face challenges such as getting assessments around occupational therapy.
• The Governance and Improvement team has, among other things, a role in safeguarding and on the outcomes for vulnerable people in the community.
• The external focus includes an audit service provided by Mazars, which carries out its audits in areas where the department feels could improve or needs to be tested. There are a number of these each year which informs future practice.
• The London ADASS network is used for peer review which comes in to look at one of three themes each year – Safeguarding, Commissioning and Use of Resources.
• The Adult Social Care Outcomes Framework (ASCOF) which provides local and national statistics on outcomes that care and support services should achieve and sets a benchmark for how well each Council is performing on these.
• The Local Government Association (LGA) also provides analysis and has recently been involved in some work to better understand demand and cost of care within Haringey.

John Everson then responded to questions from the Panel on each of the different sections within the report.

Quality Assurance Board

• On the criteria used by the Board, John Everson said that they look at benchmarks of what is considered to be good quality in adult social care such as the indicators used by the ASCOF for example. Considerations include the timeliness of assessments, feedback from service users and carers, compliments and complaints received and CQC ratings.
• Asked whether there is independent input on the Board, he acknowledged that it is an internal board but said that that there is external audit from Mazurs who assess the department’s practice in key areas as well as the input from London ADASS.
• Asked whether the Local Account (which details the performance and priorities of Adult Social Services) was an online-only document, he confirmed that it was but that it could be printed out on request. Helena Kania commented that paper copies should be made available to the public in libraries. The 2018/19 Local Account has recently been published and it was agreed that this document be shared with the Panel. (ACTION)
• On how the questions to service users were structured and whether they were based on pre-set questions or more in-depth interviews, he said that the infrastructure is set up to broadly look at the whole picture. The conversations with service users and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 52.

Report to follow.

Tim Miller, Joint Assistant Director for Vulnerable Adults and Children for Haringey Council and NHS Haringey CCG, introduced the report for this item, noting that the Cabinet had recently given approval to proceed with this development. The Canning Crescent site was previously built as a mental health community centre and had been occupied by Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust. The Council acquired the site in 2019 and now has approval to develop it into a community mental health recovery centre with partners. The development will include a new home for Clarendon Recovery College, the Council’s directly-provided education-based day opportunities service for adult mental health. It will also provide a new Safe Haven (or “crisis café”) which is an out of hours, non-clinical service for people who may be experiencing a mental health crisis. The third element is a Recovery House, which is currently run from a Council-run building in Fortis Green and provides six rooms of short-stay accommodation for people who may be experiencing a mental health crisis providing non-clinical support and respite. Moving this service to Canning Crescent would provide an opportunity to expand and redesign the provision. There had originally been an aspiration to provide a supported living scheme on the site but this was not found to be the best option. However, there is a still a commitment to deliver the scheme so alternative sites were being looked at including at the Fortis Green building.

Tim Miller then responded to questions from the Panel.

• Asked for further details about the ‘recovery college’ approach, he said that for a long time service users had been sent to day centres which helped to reduce social isolation but did not always make progress with other issues. The recovery colleges take an educational approach to health and well-being and provide a range of courses focused on mental health which are taught by professionals, family carers and people with lived experience of mental health conditions.
• On how the local community had been involved in the project, he said that people who had previously used the Clarendon had been involved in the design. A group of service users had been working with the Mental Health Trust on the Recovery House redesign project and there had been some focus groups with people at the Recovery College. There had also been some discussion with organisations in the Wood Green area but it has not been in-depth so far as the project had not been approved until very recently. A key principle of the project in that it is embedded in the community and is a resource for the community. It should also be noted that the site was already used as a mental health facility prior to the project being approved. Asked whether he could provide an update in future about how the local community was being involved in the design now that the project had been approved, he confirmed that he would be happy to do so. (ACTION)
• Asked about oversight and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 53.

To consider potential issues for inclusion within the next work plan.

Dominic O’Brien, Scrutiny Officer, updated Members on the Panel’s work programme. Evidence sessions for the Scrutiny Review on Adult Social Care Commissioning would be continuing the following week with a meeting with the Severe and Complex Autism Reference Group (SCALD) to discuss co-design issues.

Other sessions were booked with Council officers and a full list of forthcoming meetings would be circulated to Members by email.

A joint meeting involving Members from both the Adults & Health Scrutiny Panel and the Children & Young People’s Scrutiny Panel on the topic of transitions and the forthcoming Autism Strategy was scheduled for 11^th March 2020.

The Scrutiny Café, a community consultation event to discuss which topics the Scrutiny Committee/Panels should include in their next Work Programmes, was scheduled for 20^th March 2020.

To consider any items admitted at item 3 above.