Agenda item

Report of Paul Darby, Corporate Director of Resources and presentations by representatives of:

(a)     County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust; and

(b)     Tees Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust.

The Committee considered a report of the Corporate Director of Resources which provided members the opportunity to consider and comment on the draft 202/324 Quality Accounts for:

·      County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust

·      Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust

The Principal Overview and Scrutiny Officer advised that the report introduced the draft Accounts of County Durham and Darlington Foundation Trust and Tees; Esk and Wear Valley Foundation Trust and sets out the requirements placed upon the Committee in order to respond formally to the documents.

W Edge, Assistant Director of Assurance and Compliance and L Ward, Associate Director of Nursing (Patient Safety) provided a detailed presentation for County Durham and Darlington Foundation Trust (CDDFT) and highlighted the key areas of performance for 2023/24 and proposed Quality Account priorities for 2024/25 (for copy see file of minutes). 

Councillor Earley referred to the MRSA death figures in hospitals and surges through hospitals and the patient journey and seven days working which he assumed was more clinical work and not just access to services. He indicated if you were operating a hospital at those capacity levels you are going to make it harder to clean wards and the chances of picking up infections would increase with the pressure on the system.

The Assistant Director of Assurance and Compliance responded that this was a fair observation and members had heard earlier in the meeting of the alternative provision that had put into the county in terms of the people not necessarily coming into hospital. Through the local Accident and Emergency Board they were lots of conversations around this and lots of auditing and continuous improvement. He continued that the demand levels remained high and was seven days a week. They had a business case to recruit medical staff for seven day service and recruited another eight or nine doctors that were allowing them to sustain speciality rotas at weekends. They had recognised the pressure this had put on the system for infection control and had approval to expand the infection control team so were available seven days a week to support the medical and nursing staff on site.

Councillor Howey referred to the difficult parking at hospitals and commented that Darlington outpatients was not very private, and this was concerning.

The Assistant Director of Assurance and Compliance responded that car parking was a real pressure and improvements had been made. Regarding the outpatients department at Darlington the new department would be open in December this was a short-term issue, but they take privacy very seriously and would pass on these comments.

L McCrindle, Associate Director of Quality Governance, Compliance and Quality Data and C Morton, Lived Experience Care Group Director then provided a detailed presentation for Tees, Esk and Wear Valley NHS Foundation Trust (TEWV NHS FT) and highlighted the key areas of performance for 2023/24 and proposed Quality Account priorities for 2024/25 (for copy see file of minutes). 

Councillor Stubbs commented that it was pleasing to see the positive changes that had been made but there were still some serious areas that required improvement.

Ms G McGee indicated that Healthwatch County Durham had received feedback from the public that they had being discussing with the Trust and had received a strategic level of commitment to hearing the feedback and looking at improvements. She continued that what they were seeing that this was not always translated down into service provision at the moment and was the areas that they were discussing. A lot of the improvement were focused on in-patient services and asked if they could tell members about the focus on community base services and if they would receive the same level resource input.

Officers responded that the priorities were about everything proactive and over the next year this would be the real focus. The Community Transformation programme was looking at working with other partner organisations including the voluntary sector and would see some of those change bedding in across the community teams going forward.

Councillor Earley referred to the PACT meetings and how they hear about the amount of time the police deal with people in mental health crisis. He asked if there were indicators on how often these referrals come through to the system and if it was as bad as he was hearing.

The Lived Experience Care Group Director responded that it was a real challenge with regard to the response to people in crisis and indicated that a lot was happening. There was the right care right person initiative now and forces across the country were working on getting the right person to someone in crisis. There was a dedicated team working with Durham Constabulary on the initiative.

Resolved: That the information detailed in the reports and presentations be noted and the production of responses to the Draft Quality Accounts be delegated to the Democratic Services Manager as Statutory Scrutiny Officer be agreed.