Agenda and minutes

 Ms Luffingham, Deputy Chief Executive, Ms  Duffey, Head of Midwifery, Dr  Unter, Clinical Lead for, Dr Bolsover, Clinical Lead for Women and Children’s Services (Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust), Ms  Thomas, Director of Service Redesign (NHS West Kent).  Mr Reynolds, Head of Business Development, (South East Coast Ambulance NHS Trust), Mr Fowle, Dr Hart and Mr Pentecost (Maidstone Action for Services in Hospital – MASH), Councillor Garland, Leader and Councillor Fran Wilson (Maidstone Borough Council) were present for this item. 

(1)       Further to Minute 22/2009 the Chairman invited representatives from the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust to explain the impact of the plans which were now being implemented for Women’s and Children’s Services.

(2)       Ms Luffingham thanked the Task and Finish Group for carrying out their review.  Although this had covered the same points and questions as the previous Joint Select Committee of the Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee (formally known as the NHS Overview and Scrutiny Committee) in December 2004, different members of staff had been involved for the first time and the same outcome had been reached.  She supported the view that the changes needed to go ahead for patient care.  The Task and Finish Group had visited the new Pembury Hospital and viewed where the new Women’s and Children’s Department would be located within the hospital.  Despite public concern regarding future services at Maidstone Hospital no viable alternative solution(s) to the retention of full maternity services at both Maidstone and Pembury Hospitals had been put forward.

(3)       Ms Luffingham stated that she understood the public anxieties around these proposals and the Trust would like to work towards giving the public the same level of re-assurance that they had given the Task and Finish Group.  She explained that any delay in developing the services would be a delay in improving patient care.  She wanted a quality and safe service for the 0.5m population. 

(4)       Dr Bolsover gave some background to the reconfiguration.  He explained that Consultants in Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells trust began to express concern about the future of services for women and children about 10 years ago.  There was also an awareness of the impact that the introduction of the European Working Time Directive would have on the number of junior doctors required to operate the service.  In the past paediatrics at both sites were supported by 3 registrars who worked on a rota, the Working Time Directive reduced their hours to 42 a week which meant that in order to provide the service, with cover for absence, 8 registrars were required.  Ahead of the introduction of the Directive the Trust expanded the number of Registrars from 3 to 8.  However, they did not need to increase the number of Consultants so training opportunities did not exist.   Over the last year they had attempted to maintain rotas on both sites.  However, the best solution was to combine services on one site, this would give enough clinical experience to attract the calibre of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

(1)       The Committee considered whether they wished to have a full discussion on dentistry at a future meeting.

(2)       Mr Ferrin stated that there needed to be a way for the papers submitted to the Committee to be more helpful in aiding Members to get to the issues.  If it was decided to have a session on dentistry research needed to be carried out into what the key issues were, Committee Members should have the opportunity to consider what issues they would like covered at the meeting and then NHS colleagues should be invited to address these.  He also reminded the Committee that a lot of Kent residents accessed their health services commissioned by Medway PCT and it was important that they were included in any discussions on relevant issues.

(3)       Mr Daley also referred to the need for the Committee to have access to expertise so that they could understand what the key issues were. He stated that when he had been a Member of a PCT board dentistry had been the poor relation, some dental budgets held by PCT’s were not fully used.  He also gave the Overview, Scrutiny and Localism Manager a list of questions that he had been given by the Chairman of the Local Dental Committee, who had indicated that he would be willing to attend a meeting of the Committee subject to work commitments. 

(4)       Mr Kendall referred to the LINks comments on dentistry containing a list of complaints that the Kent LINk had received. 

(5)       The Chairman stated that it would be helpful to know exactly what the role of a dentist should be and also the question of how the service was financed should be explored.  

(6)       Mr Wickenden referred to the forward work programme which was normally circulated with the agenda for each meeting.  Regarding the Task and Finish Group which had considered the reconfiguration of women’s and children’s services by Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, this group had, over a two and a half week period interviewed a whole range of stakeholders and members had written the report.  This had been a very powerful process for Members.  He referred to the agenda setting process where health colleagues came together with the Chairman, Vice Chairman and Spokesman on the this Committee on a 6 weekly basis to focus the way that the Committee did business.  Mr Wickenden undertook to e-mail to the work programme to Members of the Committee.

(7)       Councillor Blackmore referred to the four District Council representatives co-opted onto the Committee and stated that only two attended on a regular basis and asked if there was anything that could be done to encourage District Councils to make full use of this opportunity.  Mr Wickenden stated that this was a matter for District Councils and it relied on them to ensue that they operated a system, including the use of named substitutes,  to ensure that there were always four District Council voting representative at each meeting.

(8)       RESOLVED that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

(1)       It was noted that no information had been received from West Kent and therefore the Committee felt that they needed to consider this issue further at a future meeting.

(2)       RESOLVED that the information supplied by NHS Eastern and Coastal Kent be noted and at the next agenda setting meeting consideration be given to programming a session on Out of Hours services .