Agenda item

Report of Assistant Chief Executive.

The Committee considered a report of the Assistant Chief Executive that presented progress against the council’s corporate basket of performance indicators and reported other significant performance issues for the first quarter of 2012/13 (for copy see file of Minutes).

Councillor Crute referred to paragraph 7(a) and asked why the average length of stay for a permanent residential admission had reduced from 547 days in 2010/11 to 487 days in 2011/12.  Peter Appleton, Head of Planning and Service, Children and Adult Services replied that this reduction in the length of stay was due to people staying in their own home longer, which resulted in their age of admission being greater and length of stay being shorter.

Councillor Temple informed the Committee that he was pleased with the increase in screening for bowel cancer as mentioned in paragraph 7(b) and asked whether any lessons from this increase could be transferred to other campaigns such as the initiation of breastfeeding.  The Head of Planning and Service, Children and Adult Services replied that although lessons were learned from successful campaigns, these were not always transferable, as target audiences were often different.

Councillor Wright referred to paragraph 11(b)(iii) regarding excess winter deaths and expressed concern that there was not sufficient publicity about the flu vaccination.  Mary Bewley, Head of Communications and Involvement, NHS County Durham and Darlington informed the Committee that there had been a slight delay in getting information from the Department of Health but added that information would be available in time that the flu vaccination programme needed to commence.

Resolved:

That the report be noted.