Agenda and minutes

The Chair congratulated Northumbria Healthcare NHS Trust on being awarded an outstanding rating by the Care Quality Commission for the second successive time.

The Chair welcomed Susannah Thompson who was to replace Paul Stanley as TyneHealth’s representative on the Board. It was reported that Scott Burrell had been appointed to replace Catherine Hearne as the representative from the Voluntary and Community Sector Chief Officers Group. The Chair also announced that following the changes to the child safeguarding arrangements, Richard Burrows, who had been Chair of the Safeguarding Children Board would no longer serve as a member of the Board and on she expressed her thanks and appreciation for his contribution to the work of the Board.

To receive a report on the appointment of Substitute Members.

Any Member of the Board who is unable to attend the meeting

may appoint a substitute member. The Contact Officer

must be notified prior to the commencement of the meeting.

Pursuant to the Council’s constitution the appointment of the following substitute members was reported:-

Ian Warne for Lynsay McVay (Tyne & Wear Fire and Rescue Service)

Voting Members of the Board are invited to declare any

registerable and/or non-registerable interests in matters

appearing on the agenda, and the nature of that interest. They

are also invited to disclose any dispensation in relation to any

registerable and/or non-registerable interests that have been

granted in respect of any matters appearing on the agenda.

Non voting members are invited to declare any conflicts of

interest in matters appearing on the agenda and the nature of

that interest.

Please complete the Declarations of Interests card available at

the meeting and return it to the Democratic Services Officer

before leaving the meeting.

There were no declarations of interest or dispensations reported.

To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on 12 September 2019.

Resolved that the minutes of the previous meeting held on 12 September 2019 be confirmed and signed by the Chair.

To receive an update on the strategic approach and action plan to reduce the rate of hospital admissions in children 0-14 years to the same or better than the rate for England.

The Board received a progress report in relation to its Strategic Objective No. 1 “To tackle childhood accidents”, specifically to reduce the rate of hospital admissions in children 0-14 years to the same or better than the rate for England. The Board had received an earlier report in November 2018 when it had agreed that a task and finish group be formed to:

a)    obtain and analyse further data sets to better understand childhood accidents by ward, age, gender and type of injury through; and

b)    develop an action plan to reduce the rate of hospital admissions in children 0-14 years to the same or better than the rate for England.

Consequently a multi-agency Childhood Accident Task and Finish Group had been established to complete this work.

The data obtained by the group showed that the rate of hospital admissions caused by unintentional and deliberate injuries in children (aged 0-4 North Tyneside) had reduced to 138.1 per 10,000 (2017/18) and this was not significantly different to the England rate (121.2 per 10,000) and better when compared with the North East regional benchmark. While the hospital admission rate (111.3 per 10,000) for children aged 0-14 in North Tyneside was still higher than the England rate (96.4 per 10,000) the trend showed a reduction on the previous year. Further data obtained from the 111 service, A&E Departments and hospital admissions gave an indication of the wards from where the majority of cases came from and the most common causes of injury. Falls are the most frequent accident and reported in North Tyneside children aged 0-5 and 0-14.

The Board were presented with the North Tyneside Accident Prevention Action Plan 2018-2020 which set out the strategic approach to preventing childhood accidents, based on the evidence of what worked and delivered by a range of partners.  In 2018/19 borough wide evidence-based campaigns on accident prevention across community settings had been delivered, the Tyne and Wear Fire & Rescue Service had delivered SafetyWorks accident prevention to 2000 children and funding had been obtained to pilot additional safety equipment for families living in the Chirton and Riverside Wards, the areas with the highest incidence of accidents.

In the future, support to communities and households at greatest risk would be prioritised, health visiting would include comprehensive injury and accident prevention component from January 2020; the Riverside and Chirton home safety equipment scheme would be evaluated,    safety standards in outdoor play and leisure facilities would be maintained and work would be undertaken with the RNLI to co-ordinate messages around water safety.

The Board heard that the public health service did not deliver its programmes within play group or private nursery settings but childcare providers had a responsibility to provide safe environments under separate regulatory frameworks.

Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust indicated that it would be willing to work with officers to provide additional data relating to children from North Tyneside attending urgent care services in Newcastle.

The Board discussed the effectiveness of introducing 20mph speed limits in residential areas  ...  view the full minutes text for item HW22/19

To receive an update on the work of Healthwatch North Tyneside and highlight the key issues local people have been raising with Healthwatch. 

The Board received a report from Healthwatch North Tyneside setting out the work it had undertaken and highlighting the key issues local people had raised with Healthwatch. The report highlighted the following areas of work:

a)     two new mental health resources had been produced: a “help yourself” leaflet produced by young people to identify the services that they used and they found helpful and a leaflet for people needing mental health support providing details of the services that people can self-refer to get the support they need.

b)     gathering the views of service users and their families and carers to better understand older people’s experience of memory and mental health services.

c)     progress had been made in responding to the recommended actions set out in the Supporting People in Crisis report published in November 2018,

d)     an 18 month research project was underway to get a better understanding of what local people do when they feel ill. This topic had been chosen as people were confused about where to go to get the care they need.

e)     a report with recommendations had recently been published based on the views of people in the waiting areas of the Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital in Cramlington.

f)      an issue focused paper had been produced based on local people’s experiences of people who have had a stroke and their carers. The paper made six key recommendations; and

g)     Healthwatch had arranged focus groups across England to establish how the NHS Long Term Plan should be implemented locally. Healthwatch North Tyneside’s engagement had fed into a regional report and a more detailed version of this report which focused on the views of North Tyneside residents had been shared with the CCG.

There were a number of emerging issues arising from Healthwatch’s work including transport to health and social care services, issues with the electronic prescription system, dissatisfaction with the support available for hearing loss and the need to better coordinate the different engagement activities around health and social care issues.

Partners welcomed the report and the useful feedback Healthwatch provided. This information was useful to organisations when matched with their own performance data to enrich their understanding of user’s experiences and help formulate future actions plans. 

The Board considered the availability of sign language interpretation services and initiatives to equip healthcare staff with basic sign language skills. The Board also explored in more detail the specific difficulties experienced by users of the electronic prescription system.

Members discussed the need to better understand the transport difficulties encountered by service users, the scale of these problems and the impact on services, for example users missing their appointments. It was stated that 80% of healthcare appointments were within the primary care sector and if services were closer to home they would be more accessible. The Board agreed that improvements to the transport system were beyond its remit but members recognised that transport to employment, leisure and culture was an important contributory factor in determining the  ...  view the full minutes text for item HW23/19

To receive an overview of the health protection system and outcomes for North Tyneside to provide assurance that the current arrangements for health protection are robust and equipped to meet the needs of the population.

The Board received an overview of the health protection system and outcomes in North Tyneside as part of the Director of Public Health’s responsibility to provide assurance that the current arrangements were robust and equipped to meet the needs of the population.

The Director of Public Health was responsible for the Council’s contribution to health protection matters and exercised its functions in planning for, and responding to, emergencies that present a risk to public health. The Director was also responsible for providing information, advice, challenge and advocacy to promote health protection arrangements by relevant organisations operating in the area. The Director therefore presented a Health Protection Assurance report to the Board for this purpose.

The report concluded that North Tyneside had robust systems in place in the

management of existing and emerging health protection issues. An analysis of the data regarding health protection outcomes for screening, immunisation, communicable diseases and air quality had highlighted that there were areas that required improvement. These areas would form priorities for 2019/20. These included:

a)        Uptake of cancer screening programmes where there was evidence of variation at a local level in uptake;

b)        Childhood immunisation programme and a decline in the number of five year olds who receive two doses of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination.

c)         A decline in the numbers of girls receiving the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccination.

d)        The uptake of the influenza vaccination for clinical risk groups including  pregnant women and frontline staff.

e)        The formation of a joint local screening and immunisation oversight group for North Tyneside and Northumberland.

f)          changing risk-related behaviours in the general population as part of the antimicrobial resistance work.

g)        Improving and monitoring air quality in North Tyneside

h)        Local and national planning for Brexit to consider the implications for environmental health and port health functions.

Resolved that (1) the Health Protection Assurance report be noted;

(2) the areas requiring improvement as set out above be endorsed; and

(3) the Board is assured that the local health protection arrangements are robust and work well.

To provide an update on the work carried out to explore how the Dementia Friendly Communities agenda could be taken forward in North Tyneside.

In June 2019 the Board agreed that some additional scoping work should be undertaken by a small group to explore the funding, resources and approach that would be required to continue to work towards making North Tyneside a dementia friendly Borough. A dementia friendly community (DFC) was a city, town or village where people with dementia are understood, respected and supported.

A workshop had been held on 3 October 2019 to review an earlier project to register Wallsend and Whitley Bay as a DFC, review what had happened since, explore other areas which had been successful in taking forward the DFC agenda and agree an approach that may work for North Tyneside. The workshop had concluded that the project model previously followed had not been sustainable as it had been reliant on a single worker within one agency, rather than identifying passionate people from within the community with an interest in making their own community dementia friendly. Furthermore the Alzheimer’s Society now offered better support. The group examined some successful schemes in place elsewhere nationally. These had been established by identifying key local people from within the community who came together to make the area dementia friendly.

It was recommended that an event should be held in January 2020, in collaboration with the Alzheimer’s Society, with the aim of identifying people,  residents and organisations who might be interested in making their area dementia friendly.  The event would be marketed across North Tyneside, including some specific invites for key local organisations and groups and relevant partnership boards and include people with dementia and their carers.

Resolved that an event be planned and delivered, to identify people within the community who want to take forward the Dementia Friendly Community agenda working with the Alzheimer’s Society to embed a sustainable approach.