Minutes:
(1) Mrs Blyth Independent Chairman of the Kent Safeguarding Children Board (KCSB) made a presentation to the Shadow Board on its role and purpose.
(2) The presentation provided the opportunity for the Shadow Health and Wellbeing Board to consider the interrelationship with the KSCB and its dual role to influence the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment. As an example Mrs Blyth suggested that the Health and Wellbeing Board should report back to the KSCB on how well early intervention services are embedded in Kent.
(3) Membership of the KSCB was key and Mrs Blyth was particularly interested in how the Clinical Commissioning Groups would be represented on the KSCB.
(4) Mrs Blyth informed the Board that she had met with the Mr Gough and they had discussed the possibility of the Annual report of the Kent Safeguarding and Children Board being submitted to a meeting of the Health and Wellbeing Board in July.
(5) Mrs Whittle stressed the synergy and need to work together with the KSCB citing the opportunities to work together. She added that having a clear and formal reporting line was key moving forward.
(6) Ms Davies expressed the view that within the newly created Clinical Commissioning Groups there was a key issue around the skill set and knowledge for safeguarding issues. She added that historically in the Primary Care Trust infrastructure there was one PCT which had taken the lead on these issues.
(7) Mr Carter emphasised the need for a Communication Strategy for the Health and Wellbeing Board. It was important that CCG Executives identified the “big ticket” items. There needed to be a network to share good practice speedily.
(8) Dr Woodhead said that there needed to be a collaborative approach across Kent and Medway. Having an operational post to ensure the two way communication between the relevant agencies was key and this was acknowledged by Mrs Blyth.
(9) Ms Carpenter said that across Kent there were four Nursing Officers.
(10) Mr Watkins expressed the view that from what had been said there did not appear to be a great deal to do to ensure that the agencies were joined up and working together.
(11) Dr Woodhead said that from a CCG perspective there needed to be the ability to assess what was going on across Kent and Medway.
(12) Mr Ireland said that the “Improvement Notice” which Kent County Council was addressing made it clear that the relationship between the agencies/ boards must be joined up.
(13) Dr Pinnock said in times of immense change there was an opportunity for things to go wrong. Often issues were seen as threatening. He questioned whether existing teams should be dismantled. He added that there should not be a wasteful rethink if improvements could not be achieved.
(14) Mrs Peachey said that there were opportunities here for CCGs. She added that there was a very important report about to be published by a Kent County Council Select Committee which had been looking at the issue of Domestic violence.
(15) The Board AGREED that work should continue around collaboration between the Board and the KCSB; the review of the KCSB annual report should be the bare minimum, and work should continue in areas such as the Common Assessment Framework.
(16) There would be a report back to the Health and Wellbeing Board on 30 January 2013 on the arrangements for collaboration which have been established.
(17) It was agreed that a response should be sent to the letter recently received from David Nicholson following the recent revelations relating to the late Jimmy Saville.
(18) Dr Pinnock asked about the role of the Care Quality Commission (if any in safeguarding issues) bearing in mind the Commission had an oversight role.