Issue - meetings

(1)       The Overview and Scrutiny Manager submitted a report updating the Committee on the future work programme and a number of other issues. 

(2)       Asked about the establishment of a Local Involvement Network (LINk), the Overview and Scrutiny Manager said that reports would be made to the Committee in July and November on the proposal to establish a LINk. 

(3)       The Overview and Scrutiny Manager made reference to a visit by some Members to the Kent headquarters of the South East Coast Ambulance Service, which had been excellent.  He asked if the Committee would welcome a repeat visit.  He also asked whether Members would like to visit the Integrated Clinical Assessment and Treatment Service being operated as a pilot in Ashford.  The Committee agreed that both these proposed visits would be useful. 

(4)       Mr Horne raised the issues of: the lack of NHS dentists in Tonbridge; and the future of Tonbridge Cottage Hospital.  The Overview and Scrutiny Manager said that, with regard to the Community Hospitals, Fit for the Future was a standing item on the NHS Overview and Scrutiny Committee’s agenda and the Committee could maintain a watching brief on this issue under that heading.  He also reminded the Committee that its Members and all those who represented an electoral division in West Kent had been invited to a stakeholder meeting about the review of Community Hospitals in West Kent on the afternoon of 17 May at Tonbridge.

(5)       Questions were then asked about the homeopathy review being undertaken by West Kent PCT.  The Overview and Scrutiny Manager reported that the consultation document was included in the papers before the Committee for their information.  The consultation finished on 2 July and a report would be submitted to the West Kent PCT Board on 26 July.  He indicated that if Members had any comments that they wished to make they should make these direct to the PCT.  In response to comments from one of the Members of the Committee that there was too much business on the NHS Overview and Scrutiny Committee agendas and that some of the items before them could be tackled informally, the Overview and Scrutiny Manager referred the Committee to the protocols for the operation of NHS Overview and Scrutiny across Kent.  These protocols were currently being revisited by a steering group including health, Patient and Public Involvement Forum, and Borough and District authority colleagues.  Consideration would be given to delegating some of the work of the NHS Overview and Scrutiny Committee to Boroughs and Districts, which had always been the intention within the existing protocols.  He referred the Committee to the issue of the proposed Whitstable Polyclinic, which had been tackled at the last meeting of the Committee, held in Canterbury on 23 March. There was a clear willingness on the part of Canterbury City Council to take forward the overview and scrutiny of this issue.