The Chair (Councillor Tuffin) provided a verbal update to the Board and highlighted the following –

Health and Social Care Committee – Sexual Health Inquiry visit 11 February 2019

The Health and Social Care Select Committee’s (HSCSC) role is to scrutinise policy, administration and expenditure of the Department of Health and Social Care and its associated bodies.  This visit was part of an inquiry into sexual health and provides the Committee with an opportunity to hear first-hand experience from those working in the field.

In acknowledgement of the risks of service fragmentation the partnership of University Hospital Plymouth NHS Trust, Livewell SW, Eddystone Trust and the Zone worked with NEW Devon Clinical Commissioning Group, NHS England and public health commissioning leads from neighbouring areas to overcome geographical and commissioning boundaries and promote clear pathways and improved access.

The Committee praised our approach to the joined up Commissioning and Delivery of services but acknowledged that recent cuts to Public Health grant created challenges.

Local System Reviews

Local progress and action plan had been subject to a Monitoring visit, the findings were on the agenda but the good progress made as a system had been noted.

Wellbeing Hubs

The next Hub at Cumberland would be opening on 22 March 2019.  In order to support the Hubs the new Advice and Information on line directory would be launched in June 2019. This would enable people to access the right accurate information about services across the City and would replace the existing Plymouth Online Directory (POD).  They have hosted a number of visits to the Hubs and these facilities were continuing to provide support to people out in the local communities.

Developments in patient services

In February 2019 waiting times for patients needing cardiology diagnosis and treatment started to be addressed with the opening of a third specialist lab in the grounds of Derriford Hospital. Currently there are two cardiac catheterisation (cath) labs for cardiology patients at the hospital, which does not give sufficient space to see and treat all the patients needing planned procedures as well as those patients coming in as emergencies.  Some patients had been waiting for 40 weeks for angiogram tests and up to 52 weeks for artery-widening treatment, called angioplasty. 

In a bid to secure extra capacity to treat patients in a timely way, Regent’s Park Healthcare (RPH), a private provider of cardiology services, was building a specialist centre at the back of       the hospital, just behind the South West Cardiothoracic Centre’s Terence Lewis building. In a partnership arrangement, the new centre would offer services for NHS patients three days per week initially.

This week major building works were taking place within the Resus area at Accident and Emergency enabling further improvements to the local emergency department facility.