Agenda and minutes

Apolgies were recieved from Councillor Kauffman with Councillor Duducu substituting, and Councillor Dheer.

None.

None.

It was confirmed that all items were in Part 1 and would be heard in public.

The minutes from 31 July 2017 were agreed as an accurate record subject to the following additions:

1.    In relation to agenda item 8, the Committee asked for further information on how the Fair Funding Formula would affect the Borough's individual schools when it becomes live next April; and

2.    In relation to agenda item 6, the Committee was concerned that agencies which were involved in safeguarding issues may rather then would provide funding to allow work to be carried out in order to ensure safeguarding procedures were set to the highest quality.

The Committee considered the report on the current position of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). 

Joan Veysey, Deputy COO at the Hillingdon Clinical Commissioning Group (HCCG), addressed the meeting. She provided the Committee with a handout entitled 'Hillingdon's Child and Adolescent Mental Health Policy Overview Committee Performance' and in summary, made the following points:

·         Jane Hainstock has been appointed as a substantive member of staff.

·         Areas of concerns include waiting times and access. Central northwest London (CNWL) is working on a number of transformation projects such as brief treatment and intervention, redesign of core CAMHS, T4 New Models of care, development of a 24/7 intensive community support service and piloting child wellbeing practitioners.

·         The backlog has been reduced and planned targets have been achieved. NHS England has provided Hillingdon CCG with £64, 00 in the first tranche of funding to be released and further £64, 00 is the second tranche in 17/18.

·         It was predicted that the waiting times to meet the 18 week target would be met by November 2017.

·         The exception report gave reassurance that risks were being mitigated by ongoing monitoring and the additional funding being received by NHS England to deal with the demand and capacity issues.

·         29 out of 136 referrals were from Hillingdon in relation to Eating disorders service. Soem of the interventions offered were family based intervention (anorexia) and systemic family therapy. Individual goals were set with families and outcomes from evaluation included reduction in tier 4 admission to ED units.

·         In relation to out of hours referrals for Children and Yong People, there were 653 referrals to the CNWL service from 1 April 2016 to 31 March 2016 (referrals reicved and seen) . The number of referrals in the yeat is 716.Since July 2017 the service has changed its name to the crisis and liaison service which operates 24/7.

·         There are 3 Hillingdon CYP in tier 4 beds which is a reduction from 15/16 and 16/17 figures. There is an also a reduction in the number of people placed many miles from home from 40% to 17%.

The Chairman welcomed the representatives from CAMHS however expressed that there had been some dissatisfaction with the service in the past. Although there appeared to be progress, the Committee needed reassurance that action was being undertaken in order to support residents and non residents.

The Committee was of the view that this area involved high risk patients and it was crucial that the service was a in strong position to assess and support these children who were often in a lot of distress. If children were not accessed form an early stage, the mental health concerns would mostly likely deteriorate.

The Committee noted the points in that some Borughs received more funding which was why some waiting times were more reduced in comparison with Hilingson. Children waiting times of 4.5 months - 18 weeks was a long time. The Committee was told that the type of intervention varied and to manage  ...  view the full minutes text for item 28.

Officer introduced the revising scoping report and explained that the review had been scoped with a focus on three key areas; identification, intervention and transition.

The Committee heard from the follow witnesses:

Witness 1 - Zoe Sargent Head of Children's Services and Operations, Hillingdon Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust

·         Zoe took the Committee through a handout she had prepared. She explained that the Health Visiting Service comprised of three teams including health vistiros, community staff nurses , nursery nurses and admisnitrative staff.

·         This service was provided to children from 0 -5 and worked closely with childrens centres, social care and other health care pofressionsals as well General Practitioners.

·         Support and guidance was offered from an early stage including 1:1 support.

·         The type of support included antenatal contact between 28 - 32 weeks pf prganancy assessing famil needs, home visits 10 -1 4 days after nirth, health reviews for children between 8 months to a year and two - two and a half years and child health drop ins.

·         The service worked alongside children to safeguard families and provided additions support for a family if their child has a disability.  

·         Some of the steps take to support families include: if there are suggestions of social communication difficulties, the service will provide advise and guidance and make a referral to the Child Development Centre Hillingdon (CDC-H) or if more appropriate to speech and language therapy for further assessment.

Witness 2 - Tirzah Bagnulo, Inclusion Team Manager, Adult Social Care Services

The services provided by Inclusion Team to schools, parents and colleagues fell in to differentl categories which focused on different areas.

The first cateogrpy, Training, support, information, advice and guidance services, provided specialist training to teachers, Early Years practitioners on tools that would enable effective and detailed assessment or observation that directly inform identification of skill, abilities or SEND.

The second category, Links with other services involed working with advice and guidance for referral routes, Early Support Key-working, Children's Centre Staff, Early Years Practitioners, SEND Team, Children's Centres / Family Centre and CAMH's and Behaviour Support team.

The third category involved shared pathways.

Some of the challenges of the service included the amount of children on the waiting list for health services following referral, communications between Health Services and Education or LA professional, children not always being identified and services not being accessed by families, due to lack of information.

Areas for recommendations could include a central database where information on a child is stored in one place and easily accessible, an intergrated review at two years old and effective communications between health visting service and day care providers.

RESOLVED -

1.    Witnesses be thanked for their attendance and evidence; and

2.    The evidence be noted.

The Business Manager, Complaints and Enquiries introduced the report. He provided an oral summary on information and analysis of complaints and Members Enquiries received between 1 April 2016 and 31 March 2017 for Children and Young People Services.

The following key points were made in discussion:

·         Informal complaints remained similar to the figures from 2015/16 of 104 and 2016/17 of 103.

·         33 Stage 1 complaints registered for 2016/17 which is slightly more than the 2015/16 figure of 32. The average time taken to conclude a stage 1 complaint is 10.63 working days against the statutory target of 10 working days.

·         There were not stage 2 or 3 complaint investigations as many had been resolved informally.

·         Four complaints were considered by the Local Government Ombudsman - one was upheld and in the remaining three were not investigated.

·         Complaints involving children could take a long time as there were often other departments and aspects of the complaint involved.

·         Training was commissioned and delivered for all managers and officers within Children and Young People Services in handling complaints.

·         The service had received a high amount of positive feedback and compliments.

·         There had been a 7% increase in enquiries from Elected Members when comparing the figure for 2015/16 of 8611 with the figure for 2016/17 of 9185. 8% fewer Members Enquiries for social care and education services were recorded in comparison to previous years.

The Committee suggested a way to simply for Member Enquiries such as drop down menus categorising difficult complaints. Officers indicated that they would take it away and look into this area.

The Committee was pleased with the report and commended officers for their hard work. Overall the Committee commented that the results were great and that it was a good report.

RESOLVED -

1.    That the content of the annual complaint report be noted; and

2.    That officers be commended for the positive results.

RESOLVED -

(1)  The Cabinet Forward Plan was noted.

That an update on the service improvement plan; information request for fair funding formula and an update on school planning be provided at the next meeting on 18 October 2017.

RESOLVED

(1)  That the work programme be noted.