Cllr Lucia
das Neves,
Cabinet Member for Health, Social Care and Well-being, responded to
questions from the Panel on issues related to her
portfolio:
- Cllr Mason
asked about the future of the Burgoyne Road project which she had
understood had been due to replace two women’s refuges in
Hornsey which were no longer fit for purpose. Cllr das Neves noted that Burgoyne Road was no longer in her
portfolio as it now sat with Housing. She explained that the main
difficulty with the project was that the funding required from the
GLA was no longer forthcoming and agreed to provide a written
response on refuge provision for women, which may require input
from Cllr Williams as Cabinet Member for Housing Services.
(ACTION)
- Cllr
O’Donovan raised concerns that life expectancy in Haringey
had gone down and was now amongst the worst in London and observed
that factors may include Covid, poverty
and air quality. Cllr das Neves agreed
that this was worrying and added that ‘healthy life
expectancy’ rates and the gap in rates between the west and
east of the Borough were also causes for concern. She added that
the impact of poverty on this was a large multi-faceted issue and
advocated the development of a ‘Marmot’ approach
nationally to tackle health inequalities. Will Maimaris, Director for Public Health, said that
Covid deaths in Haringey had been
relatively low compared to statistical neighbours. However, the
broader picture in terms of life expectancy related to poverty and
issues such as housing. The male life expectancy had gone down in
particular. Further details were available in the Council’s
annual public health reports which Will Maimaris would circulate for information.
(ACTION) Cllr das Neves
highlighted the impact of ‘long Covid’ on people’s health, particularly
those with multiple health conditions.
- In response
to a request from Cllr Iyngkaran for an
update on Canning Crescent, Cllr das Neves reported that she had recently signed a
decision to give the contract to an organisation to finish the
project because the previous contractor had gone voluntarily
bankrupt. However, the new organisation had also now gone
voluntarily bankrupt so the project was back in the same situation
and future options were being discussed. A lot of local authorities
were seeing these issues with contractors at present due to
economic circumstances.
- Asked by Cllr
Iyngkaran about the uptake of the
measles vaccine in Haringey, Will Maimaris explained that there was some concern
about the increase in measles cases nationally and in London and
acknowledged that vaccination rates were low in London and parts of
Haringey. He had previously circulated a briefing on this to all
Councillors which he would recirculate. (ACTION) This
included information about communications campaigns and targeted
work in areas with low take-up rates.
- Cllr das
Neves reported that Haringey had the
highest rate of flu vaccinations in schools in North Central London
because of the partnership work with schools from the public health
team.
- In response
to a question from Cllr Connor about Osborne Grove Nursing Home,
Cllr das Neves confirmed that the
process had been paused for two years and would then be
reconsidered. She added that they would be working with an external
organisation on best practice, training and support for
co-production. On communication with the existing co-production
group, she wished to place on record that the group had been
contacted in mid-2023 regarding the problems with the project, but
a suitable date could not be found and this was regrettably not
then picked up in the autumn. Cllr Connor requested that further
information be provided to the Panel about the co-production work
on best practice when this became available.
(ACTION)
- Cllr Connor
raised concerns about the use of physician associate positions in
GP practices. Cllr das Neves
acknowledged that there had been a tragic case of a death in the
Borough relating to this issue. She was concerned that there was a
shortage of GPs and emphasised the importance of patients
understanding the role of the person they were seeing when using a
GP practice as there were rules that patients should not be seen
twice by a physician associate except in certain circumstances.
Cllr das Neves added that she had
written to the ICB about the role of physician associates and they
had agreed to discuss this at the Health and Wellbeing Board. She
also added that there was a role for physician associates, but that
this required the right kind of oversight and that it was important
to learn from GP practices with good practice in this
area.
- Cllr Mason
drew attention to a recent report stating that Haringey had the
largest number of low paid workers in London. Cllr das Neves suggested that this could be examined further
by the Overview & Scrutiny Committee.