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 absence were received from Cllr Mary Mason.

Cllr Sheila Peacock had given apologies for not being present in the meeting room, though she attended the full meeting online.

Apologies for absence were also received from Cllr Lucia das Neves, Cabinet Member for Health, Social Care & Wellbeing.

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).

None.

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.

Cllr Thayahlan Iyngkaran declared an interest as a consultant radiologist and a deputy medical director.

Helena Kania declared an interest as a co-Chair of the Joint Partnership Board.

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.

Referring to the action points from the previous minutes, Cllr Connor requested an update on the Council’s liaison with the Osborne Grove co-production group. Beverley Tarka, Director of Adults, Health & Communities, confirmed that Cllr das Neves had written to the group and had shared financial details following the meeting at which they had made a deputation. She added that various options were being worked through in relation to the site and that they would share further information more widely when this had been progressed. Vicky Murphy, Service Director for Adults Social Services, added that a further meeting with the group would be suggested to be scheduled for February 2025 at which they would provide as much updated information as possible.

Cllr Connor recommended that the action tracker for the Panel be included in the agenda papers under the minutes in future. (ACTION)

It was noted that the updates on Continuing Healthcare were not yet available as a meeting between the Director of Operations for Adult Community Services at the Whittington (who had presented the report) and the NCL CHC team (which would provide much of this information) had been postponed. An update would be provided to the Panel after this meeting had taken place.

The minutes of the previous meeting were approved as an accurate record.

RESOLVED – That the minutes of the meeting held on 30^th July 2024 be approved as an accurate record.

To consider the appointment of a new non-voting co-opted member of the Panel.

Dominic O’Brien, Scrutiny Officer, reported that the recommendation to the Panel, following advice from Legal Services, was to defer the report due to the need for further due diligence of the process to be carried out, including references. Apologies were given for this delay. It was noted that the recruitment process was currently being reviewed and that a further update would be provided at the next meeting. (ACTION)

RESOLVED – That the report on the Appointment of a non-voting Co-opted Member be deferred.

To provide an update on plans to support people with dementia in the Borough.

Report to follow.

The report for this item was presented in two parts, with the first part on community aspects introduced by Laura Crouch, Senior Services Manager at the Council, and the second part on NHS and partnerships introduced by Tim Miller, Assistant Director of Place, Integration, Transformation & Delivery (Haringey) at the NCL ICB. Also in attendance was Sade Olutola, Service Lead for Haringey Mental Health Services.

Slides presented by Laura Crouch covered the following points:

• An increasingly ageing population was expected to lead to increased demand for dementia services in the future with more people and more complex diagnoses. There were around 2,300 residents in Haringey thought to be living with dementia in Haringey in 2023/24, around two-thirds of which had been diagnosed with the condition.
• To prepare for the increased demand, it was necessary to look beyond traditional care models and to maximise community strengths, partners and resources. A dementia co-ordinator post had been created to enable partners to engage, network and create a more accessible and robust Borough.
• A set of Dementia Friendly Haringey Priorities had been developed through a number of sessions and activities across the Borough, involving carers, professionals and people with a diagnosis of dementia. These priorities included that Dementia Friendly Haringey will be a place where people with dementia and their carers:

o   Will be respected and experience a greater level of dementia awareness in the community.

o   Will have greater access to health and social care support services.

o   Will have access to a range of local social activities.

• 30 local services and organisations had signed up to a minimum of two actions to make their services more dementia friendly. These included GP practices and care providers.
• A list of key achievements on the ‘Greater Level of Dementia Awareness’ programme of work was provided (also available in the supplementary agenda papers) which included:

o   Funding for carers in a creative group.

o   A new ‘Singing for the Brain’ session twice per month at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

o   Nine dementia-friendly events with 40-50 attendees at each.

o   An uptake in referrals, walk-ins and signposting.

o   New dementia-friendly webpages had recently gone live.

o   Delivery of training for GPs, including double appointments for those with a diagnosis of dementia and phone calls in the morning to remind patients of their booked appointments.

o   Improvement of long-term cognition from new community activities in partnership with Jacksons Lane.

• New events were taking place at the Haynes Dementia Hub. Independent networks were being developed and activities such as carers’ lunch clubs and an evening-based carers group, led by carers, was due to be launched soon. SEN students were gaining qualifications and work experience in the kitchens and other activities. The next wave of social care workers were being actively trained to be dementia-friendly in their practices.
• The assessment and referral pathways were now working well and the localities model had enabled people to be seen more quickly.
• A communications plan was being developed with the Grace Organisation and it  ...  view the full minutes text for item 19.

To update the Panel on the Council’s response to the Governments’ smoke free generation by 2030 initiative and additional smoking grant allocated to Haringey council.

Will Maimaris, Director for Public Health, introduced this item noting that smoking remained the biggest contributor to the life expectancy gap between the richest and poorest parts of the country. He also noted that the new Government appeared to be continuing the previous Government’s proposals to tighten the law on smoking and vaping.

BezuayehuGubay, Public Health Strategist and Commissioner, then presented details of Haringey’s new plan to create a smokefree generation by 2030:

• Smoking is the single most entirely preventable cause of ill health,

disability and death in the UK, leading to around 80,000 deaths a year and

one in four of all cancer deaths.

• In Haringey, 17% of the GP registered population were smokers as of November 2023, which equated to 59,620 people.
• Various groups in Haringey had higher rates of smoking including people in routine and manual occupations (33% prevalence), people with long-term mental health conditions (28%), people from certain ethnic communities including the Turkish (28%), Polish (31%) and Romanian (31%) speaking communities and people living in the most deprived areas (20%). In addition, 5.4% of pregnant women were identified to be smokers at the time of delivery.
• Haringey had the second highest mortality ratein NCL for smoking attributable mortality in persons aged 35 years or more and had higher hospital admission rates than London as a whole.
• The economic impact of smoking on Haringey was estimated to be around £100m. The cost on an individual’s finances was also significant with someone smoking 20 cigarettes per day spending an average of £4,182 per year. An average smoker spends £1,945 per year.
• There were opportunities created through the Government’s Smoke Free Generation by 2030 initiative including increasing the age of sale, strengthening enforcement on illicit tobacco and vaping sales as well as initiatives to support and incentivise people to stop smoking. Additional funding for anti-smoking in Haringey this year was £332,932.
• A process of assessment and self-evaluation was being carried out while strategic actions included writing a tobacco control strategy, embedding the tobacco control agenda in the Health and Wellbeing Strategy and the signing of a Tobacco Control Declaration by elected members.
• Other policy actions included school initiatives, promoting smoke-free environments, public education and enforcement actions. The overall goal was to achieve 5% of smoking prevalence by 2030 which was the national target.
• The equality focus included a targeted approach on the higher-risk groups referred to previously, using the swap to stop scheme to encourage smokers to switch to vaping, efforts to reach those most in need through health ambassadors from key community groups, a multilingual website and improved referral pathways. There was also increased workforce capacity to support these initiatives including more smoking advisers and speciality training on mental health.
• The Council had committed to supporting the Tobacco and Vapes Bill and there were options for elected members to provide support, including by signing up to the London Smoke Free Councillor Network.

Will Maimaris and Bezuayehu Gubay then responded to questions from the Panel:  ...  view the full minutes text for item 20.

To consider the annual report of the Haringey Safeguarding Adults Board for 2023/24.

Dr Adi Cooper, Independent Chair of the Haringey Safeguarding Adults Board (HSAB), presented the Board’s annual report for 2023/24, explaining that this set out the statutory duties of the Board and the work of the Board and its partners over the past year. Further key points in the report that she highlighted were:

• Details of the two Safeguarding Adults Reviews that were published last year, one of which highlighted issues around self-neglect, housing provision and multi-agency working and the other which focused on commissioned care in a care home and multiple areas of physical and mental health needs. The reviews included recommendations which were responded to.
• Details of the recent work with colleagues in the Joint Partnership Board to update, revise and co-produce the five-year strategy based on the concerns and interests of residents in Haringey.
• The Board’s subgroups had changed slightly with two new subgroups to help clarify and focus on two major areas of focus for the Board:

o   Under the Safeguarding Adult Review subgroup there was now a subgroup looking at the implementation of recommendations emerging from Safeguarding Adult Reviews. She noted that there was a particular challenge, not just in learning from the Reviews but also in maintaining ongoing improvement with the churn in staffing and organisational structures and the pressures on the public sector. It was therefore necessary for the sub-group to go back to look at earlier Reviews carried out some years previously.

o   There was now a Practice & Improvement subgroup. There had previously been a Prevention & Training subgroup but these had now been split into two with an Engagement & Prevention subgroup focusing more on working with the voluntary sector, planning events for safeguarding adults and enhancing understanding of safeguarding across communities in Haringey. The new Practice & Improvement subgroup was focused more on practitioners engaged in safeguarding practices.

• Case studies gave examples of some difficult situations that practitioners were engaged with and delivering the outcomes that people want.
• A range of initiatives from partners around improvements in training, process and practice to support ongoing improvements in safeguarding.

Dr Cooper also informed the Panel that the Board received reports on a Quarterly basis where issues were raised which could lead to deep dives to check whether there was something more significant ongoing that was indicated by the data. She noted that data on safeguarding was not there as performance data but to prompt questions about issues that may be happening beneath the surface.

Dr Cooper then responded to questions from the Panel:

• Cllr Connor referred to Recommendation 8 of the ‘Paulette’ Safeguarding Adult Review, which said that the Board should consider conducting an audit of commissioned placements and care packages to ensure that social, cultural and emotional needs were recognised. She also referred to the ‘Steve’ Safeguarding Adult Review, noting the detailed aspects of multi-agency communication and co-ordination in Recommendation 1. She asked how the Board would be able to keep abreast of important but detailed recommendations such as this. In relation to the recommendation  ...  view the full minutes text for item 21.

Cllr Connor highlighted the scrutiny community consultation event, known as the ‘Scrutiny Café’ which was due to take place the following day. This would help to inform the issues for inclusion in the Panel’s work programme for both Panel meetings and Scrutiny Review topics.

Scrutiny Officer, Dominic O’Brien, noted that the feedback from the Scrutiny Café would be provided in a report to the Overview & Scrutiny Committee on 14^th October. He also informed the Panel that future Panel dates would need to be changed due to the Budget Scrutiny process being brought forward to November rather than December. This would mean that the next Panel meeting scheduled for 5^th November would be cancelled and that a new Panel meeting on the budget would take place on 14^th November. The next meeting date on 17^th December would remain in place but would be used for regular agenda items rather than the budget.

Dominic O’Brien reported that the Panel had previously requested an agenda item on preparedness for a future pandemic and that, following liaison with the Director for Public Health, it seemed likely that February 2025 would be a suitable date for this item.

·         5^th November 2024 (6.30pm)

·         17^th December 2024 (6.30pm)

·         10^th February 2025 (6.30pm)

·         Thurs 14^th November (6.30pm)

·         Tues 17^th December (6.30pm)

·         Mon 10^th February (6.30pm)