Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence had been received from Councillor Tony Burles.  Councillor Kuldeep Lakhmana attended as his substitute. 

RESOLVED:  That all items of business be considered in public. 

The Chairman welcomed those present to the meeting and thanked the representatives from The Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (THH) and Members of the Committee for agreeing to attend this additional meeting.  It was noted that the Care Quality Commission (CQC) had been unable to attend the meeting but had provided a presentation which had been circulated to Members.  The CQC would be happy to respond to any questions or comments submitted by the Committee after the meeting. 

Concern was expressed that the CQC had given THH very little time to address the observations made and the areas for improvement identified in the original report.  The Committee recognised that it would take some time to embed changes into the organisation and congratulated THH for the improvements that had already been implemented. 

THH had initially been inspected by the CQC in October 2014 with the resultant inspection report published in February 2015.  The CQC then undertook a re-inspection of the following areas in May 2015 to establish what measures had been put in place to address issues that had been identified, with its findings published in a report in August 2015:

·         Urgent and emergency services;

·         Medical care;

·         Surgery; and

·         Services for children and young people.

Mr Shane DeGaris, THH Chief Executive, advised that the targeted re-inspection undertaken by the CQC had focussed on the key services that had received 'Inadequate' for the 'Safe' domain in the original inspection report.  In its re-inspection, the CQC had acknowledged the good overall progress made by THH which had resulted in the 'Safe' rating being changed from 'Inadequate' to 'Requires improvement'.  In addition, the Warning Notices given following the original inspection had been lifted and a Requirement Notice (RN) had been put in place in relation to Regulation 12 - Safe Care and Treatment.  Mr DeGaris felt that this was a fair assessment and advised that THH recognised that there were still areas for improvement, for example, infection control. 

Professor Theresa Murphy, Director of Patient Experience, Nursing and DIPC at THH, advised that the positive practices noted by the CQC included improvements to:

·         estates building deficiencies;

·         cleaning and auditing;

·         safeguarding systems for children coming into A&E - key staff were deployed to oversee and promote good practice and further measures were being put in place to develop a more joined-up IT system with the Council;

·         sustained levels of mandatory staff training, including infection prevention/control and safeguarding;

·         cleanliness and availability of equipment to meet patients' needs; and

·         medicines management (although best practice was still not always followed by all staff).

The Committee was advised that, to ensure that all staff were aware of the correct procedures, messages were being reinforced through a range of vehicles including: the Chief Executive's briefings, observations, team meetings and wider meetings.  Sanctions for non compliance had been put in place which would result in those staff that failed to follow a procedure on three occasions being asked to explain their actions in a meeting with THH senior management.  In addition,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 25.