Agenda item

To consider NHCFT priorities and Quality Account for 2019/20.

The Sub-committee received a presentation from Jeremy Rushmer, Executive Medical Director, Northumbria Healthcare Foundation Trust (NHCFT), which set out the Trust’s Annual Plan and Quality Account, including revised priorities for 2020-21.

The Sub-committee noted that the Trust had a 5 year strategy with a vision to be ‘the leader in providing high quality, safe and caring health and care services and to lead collectively, with partners, to deliver system wide healthcare’.

It was noted that the quality account aims to demonstrate how well the trust are performing on measures of quality, including patient safety, clinical effectiveness and patient experience.  The quality account will set out information on the delivery of safety and quality priorities identified in 2019-20 and outline the agreed objectives for 2020/21.

The Sub-committee noted the performance for objectives set out last year including Frailty and flow, Deteriorating patient, Staff Experience, Cancer, Bereavement, Maternity and Every Contact Counts.

It was noted that the target of 90% had not been achieved in relation to ‘deteriorating patient’, IV antibiotics within 1 hr of suspected sepsis, with a rate of 83% being achieved.  Further action will be taken towards meeting this target.

In relation to the 2020/21 priorities, it was noted that the previously identified targets of maternity and cancer had been integrated into mainstream objectives.  A number of the 2020/21 objectives built on 2019/20 priorities and other are new objectives.  The main objectives identified are:

·         Flow – but with more focus on the ‘back door’ in relation to medical fitness for discharge and reducing length of stay;

·         Deteriorating patients and observation – continuing to work on Acute Kidney Injury, sepsis and antibiotics via Deteriorating Patient Board;

·         Medicines Management - including training of non-medical prescribers in community settings;

·         Mental Health - especially improving child and adolescent mental health pathways (CAMHS);

·         End of Life Care

·         Patient Experience – including support for carers

·         Staff Experience

It was noted that the draft Quality Account would be published in mid April and stakeholders, including Health Scrutiny Committees, will be asked to submit their opinions by the end of April 2020.  The final Quality Account will be published in May 2020.

Members asked about current situation with staffing and about any issues in maintaining staffing levels.  The sub-committee was advised that staff experience was taken seriously by the Trust and the Trust generally scores highly in the national staff survey and has not seen any increased level of staff turnover.  The nurse vacancy rate at the Trust is currently 2% which is one of the lowest in the country and the Trust is continuously running recruitment to maintain staffing levels.  The Sub-committee was advised that Brexit had not had a significant impact on staff levels compared to London and other areas.

The Sub-committee thanked the Trust for the informative presetentation.

In considering the Sub-committee’s approach to responding to the Quality Account, it was agreed that responsibility for finalising the Sub-committee’s response should be delegated to the Chair of the Sub-committee.  

Resolved:  That responsibility for finalising the Sub-committee’s submission in response to the Quality Account be delegated to the Chair of the Sub-committee.