Agenda item

Mr Gary Collier, the Council’s Health and Social Care Integration Manager, advised that the Council had recently received an ‘Outstanding’ Ofsted inspection result for its Children’s Services.  Adult Services was currently preparing to undergo a similar process with the Care Quality Commission later in the year.  It was agreed that the Q3 performance template would be signed off under delegated arrangements.  With regard to preparation time for the 2024-2025 Better Care Fund submission, it was likely that Hillingdon would only receive around six weeks’ notice.

The Board was advised that the population health management infrastructure posts were currently being advertised.  It was hoped that the interviews would take place in April so that the outcome could be reported back to the Board at its next meeting on 11 June 2024.  Other positive news included the opening of the second same-day urgent care hub in October 2023. 

Mr Collier had updated the Cabinet and the Health and Social Care Select Committee on the Carers’ Strategy.  A high number of carers had been declining to have a carers assessment (the route to statutory support from the local authority).  He would keep the Board updated on any progress that was made in improving uptake. 

Ms Kelly O’Neill, the Borough’s Director of Public Health, advised that action was being taken to align the Public Health Officers in the Integrated Neighbourhood Teams with the Population Health Management work that was being undertaken.  The NWL Integrated Care Partnership had prioritised the need to undertake further work to increase the uptake of cervical screening and expand the promotion of cancer checks to drive the uptake amongst young women.  The emphasis needed to be on keeping their families and themselves safe and making it as easy as possible to access screening / tests.  The communications also needed to be as simple as possible. 

The Board queried the data related to the number of people still at home after 91 days of reablement.  Mr Collier advised that there had been some issues getting the data together, but the data for the national metric would be the number of people admitted to hospital in Q3 and whether they were still at home during Q4.  He also mentioned that this metric would be discontinued from this year and expanded to all adults from next year.  There had been an increase in the number of long length patients at Hillingdon Hospital which had, in part, been driven by elective patients’ length of stay during the recent junior doctor strikes.  The length of stay for non-elective patients had decreased.  The average length of stay needed to reduce from 10.7 days (the NWL average was 7 days). 

Mr Keith Spencer, Co-Chair and Managing Director of Hillingdon Health and Care Partners (HHCP), advised that work had been undertaken with Mr Steve Curry at Harlington Hospice/Michael Sobell Hospice to be more clear about what good end of life care looked like.  Metrics had been agreed. 

Concern was expressed about underage girls accessing contraception and the morning-after pill, particularly in the north of the Borough.  Ms O’Neill advised that sexual health was the responsibility of the local authority, not the NHS, and that Public Health was in the process of transitioning to a new contract with London Noth West who provided this service.  A central location was needed but only a small number of pharmacies provided emergency contraception so action was needed to identify the barriers and make this happen.  As there was currently a gap in the north of the Borough, this would be included in discussions moving forward with the contract.

Mr Spencer noted that he had attended a meeting of the Health and Social Care Select Committee where they had discussed services to the Heathrow Villages.  After that meeting, representatives from a number of the partners had gone to meet with the residents in the Villages.  They had shared a draft of an evaluation report that had been written in relation to the recent wellbeing bus pilot, which had been set up to provide health services to the area.

The meeting with the residents from the five villages had been very positive and, having identified a number of preferred options with the residents, amendments were being made to the evaluation report.  Mr Spencer would be meeting with colleagues from Heathrow Airport the next day.  Heathrow owned a number of sites in the Heathrow Villages that could potentially be used for future provision of health services.  He would report back to the next Board meeting on 11 June 2024.

RESOLVED:  That:

1.    the content of the report be noted;

2.    approval of the Quarter 3 2023/24 performance template be delegated to the Council’s Corporate Director of Adult Social Care and Health in consultation with the Health and Wellbeing Board Co-Chairs, the NHS NWL Borough Director and the Healthwatch Hillingdon Chair; and

3.    Mr Spencer provide an update on the use of Heathrow Airport estate for the provision of health services in the Heathrow Villages.