Agenda and minutes

(1)       Apologies were received from Mr Pugh and Cllr Howell.   

(1)       There were no declarations of interest.

(1)       The Chair explained that the minutes would be brought back to the next meeting of the Committee for approval, to enable a query to be resolved.

Patricia Davies (Senior Responsible Officer, Kent & Medway Stroke Review), Rachel Jones (Acute Strategy Programme Director, Kent & Medway STP), Alice Caines (Principal, Carnall Farrar), Ellie Davies (Senior Analyst, Carnall Farrrar) and Steph Hood (STP Communications and Engagement Lead, Kent & Medway STP) were in attendance for this item.

(1)       The Chair stated that an updated report had been added to the agenda, via a supplement, as she had agreed that it should be considered at this meeting as a matter of urgency, as permitted under section 100B of the Local Government Act 1972. This was to enable the Committee to consider the updated report which was not available for despatch as part of the main agenda on 28 August 2018 as it required the approval of an NHS Committee taking place on the same day. She noted the updated document replaced the NHS report in the original Agenda pack.

(2)       The Chair welcomed the guests to the Committee. Ms Davies began by giving an overview of the review process to date including the development of the case for change and model of care; engagement with stakeholders; the development of the five three-site options and pre-consultation business case (PCBC) and the delivery of the public consultation; she advised that the Joint Committee of Clinical Commissioning Groups (JCCCGs) had reviewed and considered the outputs from the public consultation and was now working towards the application of the evaluation criteria to identify the preferred option and the development of the decision making business case (DMBC).

(3)       The Chair advised that the item would be taken in three parts: travel times, evaluation criteria and model for community rehabilitation.

Travel Times

(4)       Ms E Davies introduced the additional information on travel times, as requested by the Committee at its previous meeting, and proceeded to give a presentation (attached as a supplement to the Agenda pack, pp. 6 – 15) which covered the data source used; the approach to travel time modelling; validation exercises; evaluation criteria and a deep dive into travel times for Thanet. She highlighted the following key points:

§  the data had been refreshed using 2017/18 average travel times;

§  the use of car off-peak travel data as the blue light proxy had been agreed as the most appropriate measure with SECAmb;

§  the maximum travel time from any location was 63 minutes.

(5)       Members enquired about thrombolysis eligibility and benefits of stroke centralisation. Ms P Davies explained that there were two main types of stroke: clot and bleed. 70 – 80% of patients experienced a stroke as a result of a clot; of those patients, only 15 – 20% were eligible for thrombolysis. She noted that thrombolysis was not appropriate for a bleed stroke. She confirmed that a target of 120-minute call to needle time for patients had been set on the advice of the South East Coast Clinical Senate. Ms P Davies highlighted a UCL study, which reviewed reconfigured stroke services in London and Greater Manchester; it had found that the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.