Agenda item

To receive a report from the Head of Democratic Services which presents a briefing paper by the Leeds Health and Care Partnership on the current issues and actions linked to the Leeds health and care system resilience and winter planning process.

The Head of Democratic Services submitted a report which presented a briefing paper by the Leeds Health and Care Partnership on the current issues and actions linked to the Leeds health and care system resilience and winter planning process.

The following were in attendance:

·  Councillor Fiona Venner, Executive Member for Equality, Health and Wellbeing

·  Councillor Salma Arif, Executive Member for Adult Social Care, Active Lifestyles and Culture

·  Caroline Baria, Director of Adults and Health

·  Victoria Eaton, Director of Public Health

·  Dawn Bailey, Chief Officer /Consultant in Public Health (Health Protection and Sexual Health)

·  Hannah Sowerbutts, Head of Public Health (Health Protection)

·  Shona McFarlane, Deputy Director Social Work and Social Care Service

·  Sam Prince, Executive Director of Operations, Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust (LCH)

·  Alison Kenyon, Deputy Director of Service Development Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (LYPFT)

·  Helen Lewis, Director of System and Pathway Integration, Leeds Health and Care Partnership

·  Helen Smith, Programme Director, Same Day Response, Urgent and Intermediate Care, Leeds Health and Care Partnership

The Chair invited the Executive Member for Equality, Health and Wellbeing to provide some introductory comments and then invited the Director of System and Pathway Integration to highlight key aspects of the report. In summary, the following points were made:

Ø  Each organisation in the System has its own winter and resilience plans, decision management tools and its own assurance and governance structure.

Ø  The system reporting suite supports leaders in the system to understand where the pressure is in the system daily and work collaboratively to address issues.

Ø  During the winter months, it is expected there will be an increase in demand for primary care, home based services, community beds, mental health services, VCSE services as well as access to specialist equipment.

Ø  The briefing paper provided by the Leeds Health and Care Partnership provides the Scrutiny Board with an overview of the issues and actions at a system level, as well as an update on plans to support prevention of health issues and increase capacity in the System in the coming months.

Ø  Vaccinations are an important element of the prevention agenda and this year will also include the rollout of the Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccine which will be routinely offered for the first time for those aged 75 - 79 and pregnant women (from 28 weeks).

Ø  Focussed work to improve uptake across both Covid and Flu vaccine programmes is underway to address low uptake across all cohort groups and areas of sustained low uptake.

During the Board’s discussions, the following issues were also raised:

Ø  Mental Health Services – Members sought assurance that those people accessing ‘out of area’ mental health hospital care, there is a rigorous monitoring system in place when managing their care needs. 

Ø  Improving the take-up of vaccinations – It was reported that while the uptake achievement for 2023-24 was good, there are still areas for improvement in key cohorts for this year. This included pregnant women and frontline health and social care staff. The Board discussed some of the possible barriers, which included limitations with the existing booking systems as well as issues around vaccine hesitancy. Importance was also placed on delivering vaccination services in the right place and at the right time.  As part of the focussed work to improve uptake within communities, the Board suggested that relevant communication resources are also shared with Elected Members.

The Chair thanked everyone for their contribution to the Board’s discussion.

RESOLVED – That the contents of the report, along with Members comments, be noted.