Agenda item

Mr A Marsh, Cabinet Member for Public Health, and Mr M Lemon, Head of Policy, Department of Public Health, will attend the meeting from 11.45 am to 12.45 pm to answer Members’ questions on this item.

The Chairman welcomed Mr R A Marsh, Cabinet Member for Public Health and Mr M Lemon, Head of Policy (Public Health), to the meeting.

The Chairman stated that this was the third occasion this matter had come to this Committee. He added that there had been a delay in launching Health Watch and asked what the reasons for the delay was?

Mr Marsh stated that the timetable for the launch of Health Watch had been driven by previous events and that it takes time to launch an innovative idea. He added that he had made the decision not to launch 22 September because he wanted to include adult and children’s social services within the overall remit of Health Watch in order to provide a seamless signposting service for the people of Kent.

Mr Harrison stated that he was very impressed with the publicity for the service. He asked whether the budget for the service had included all of the relevant on costs, including those for the contact centre. He added that he was slightly concerned that there had only been 49 calls to the service and enquired as to whether this reflected the need for even more publicity.

Mr Marsh stated that the cost of the Health Watch service of approximately £300k equated to 1p per family per week, even though it was difficult to put a cost on a service that specializes in providing reassurance and advice. He added that, to date, there had been 61 calls to Health Watch in the first 10 days of operation. Mr Harrison stated that he agreed that the service would provide excellent value for money.

The Chairman stated that it would be useful to provide information to the Committee after an appropriate period of time about the number and nature of calls being made to the service. Mr Marsh stated that he would be more than happy to provide appropriate reports, which he suggested should be made each quarter, with a full report in December 2009, both to this Committee and the Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

Mrs Stockell stated that it was a responsibility of all Members to assist in publicising the service in their own areas, given the vital nature of the service being provided.

Mr Truelove stated that the extension of the service to social services was welcomed. He stressed that the data being collected must provide information about KCC’s own services, so that appropriate changes could be made to service delivery if required.

In response to a question from Mr Horne, Mr Marsh stated that all calls were signposted to the appropriate professional person in each relevant organisation in the most simple and most efficient way. He also referred to the proposed publicity campaign that was due to start on 1 November.

In response to a further question from Mr Horne, Mr Marsh stated that the service would be provided for as long as it was considered to be appropriate. He added that everyone concerned should be delighted if there proved to be no need for the service if, for instance, there were no calls received at all in a 6 month period.

Mr Simmonds stated that he was concerned that the service could raise expectations of improvements to services that KCC alone could not deliver. Mr Marsh stated that KCC had worked very hard to ensure that the partnership was strong and that the PCT’s were fully aware of where they needed to improve. Mr Lemon stated that operatives were made fully aware of the escalation process for each type of service being signposted by Health Watch.

Mrs Dean expressed her concern that the name of the service did not give the impression that it included social care services and wondered whether the public would have similar concerns. She added that she didn’t believe that the PCT’s had given the service a unanimous welcome. Finally, she stated that a Google search of health complaints did not result in a positive hit for Health Watch.

Mr Marsh stated that the publicity campaign being launched on 1 November would make it clear that the service was much wider than just primary health services. He added that the press had been surprised at the initial launch to see such solid support for the new service from the 2 PCT’s and had not, in his opinion, reported the launch as positively as he would have hoped, concentrating on the rhetorical side of the questions they asked, rather than the positive answers from the Chief Executives of the 2 PCT’s.

Mrs Stockell suggested that publicity material should be sent by e-mail to all Parish Councils in Kent.

Mr Truelove asked whether the response from acute services to the new Health Watch service was as positive as the PCT’s. Mr Lemon stated that the acute services were all on board, evidenced by the fact that the launch took place at Maidstone hospital, as well as the Ambulance Trust and the Mental Health Trusts.

RESOLVED: That (1) Our Committee welcomes the launch of Health Watch and the potential benefits of the service to the people of Kent;

(2) Our Committee is pleased to note the addition of social care services to the remit of Health Watch;

(3) Our Committee was pleased to note the comments of the Cabinet Member for Public Health of his intention to submit quarterly progress reports to the Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee; and

(4) Our Committee asks for a full report in December 2009, which provides a full assessment of the number, nature and geographical origin of the calls made to Health Watch, to include information about how services have or will be shaped in the future to respond to common or regular concerns from those individuals contacting Health Watch. In addition, the report should include a full assessment of the value for money of the Health Watch service