Agenda item

The Principal Overview and Scrutiny Officer informed members that S Halpin, General Manager (interim) Adult Learning Disabilities, TEWV NHS FT was unable to attend the Committee meeting but had provided the following update in her absence.

The General Manager (interim) Adult Learning Disabilities was sorry to hear that there were concerns about the availability of in-patient beds to people with a learning disability in the locality and offered the following assurance:

·      The Adult Learning Disability (ALD) community teams worked proactively to avoid hospital admissions as far as possible by supporting people at home.

·      Any person requiring an admission for a deterioration in their mental health would access a mental health bed within the Trust and these admissions (Green light) were jointly monitored between ALD & AMH services to ensure the right support was available.

·      If the situation arose that a person did need admission to a LD bed which was out of area, then the locality teams in TEWV and the Partnership would continue to provide monitoring and support.

The services had recently been re-inspected by Care Quality Commission (CQC) and had received some positive initial verbal feedback. However, they could not pre-empt what the final report would say but hoped that a full update could be provided in July 2023. Positive feedback had also been received from Mersey Care who had been supporting some of the improvement work as ‘critical friends’ and had observed that significant improvements had been made.

The time frames for the temporary closure of the ALD wards at Lanchester Road Hospital were no clearer and there was a continued focus on the needs of the remaining patient. However, the work on the planning for this including the new bed design model and the wider community model to support this was ongoing as a primary concern was to provide safe, effective, person-centred services for the local population.

Resolved

That the information detailed within the update be noted and that the concerns of the Committee be forwarded to TEWV NHS FT and that an item be brought to the Committee’s meeting in July 2023 be agreed.