Agenda item

Hazel Carpenter (Accountable Officer, NHS South Kent Coast CCG and NHS Swale CCG) was in attendance for this item.

(1)       The Chairman welcomed Ms Carpenter to the Committee. Ms Carpenter began by explaining that since the last presentation to the Committee in June, the East Kent Strategy Board had been working closely with the Kent & Medway Sustainability and Transformation Plan to determine how best to engage with the wider plan. She noted that the Case for Change had been published on 26 July and the public engagement programme had begun including public focus groups to discuss the new models of care. She reported that the East Kent Clinical Forum had agreed the outputs of the four clinical workshops as the basis for developing future models of care and work was under way to ensure the full utilisation of NHS and local authority estates in East Kent.

(2)       Ms Carpenter noted that the evaluation criteria for the long list of options were being developed and public consultation was planned to start at the end of January 2017 and conclude prior to the start of purdah for the local council elections. She highlighted that the options would be tested by the Clinical Senate on 26 October, confirmed by the Clinical Senate on 6 November and presented to the National Investment Committee at the beginning of January. She reported that the Board was exploring the development of out of hospital integrated health and care services being provided across 16 localities in East Kent.

(3)       In response to a specific question about local services in Deal, Ms Carpenter explained that she was unable to give specific details but highlighted that GPs in Deal wanted the maximum number of services to be delivered locally. She stated that the model was most advanced in Thanet with the development of Primary Care Homes; a pilot in Margate was planned for the autumn. Primary Care Homes would be a community focused model with a dedicated integrated team to manage patients with comorbidities and work with primary and secondary care practitioners; if a patient was unable to be managed in the community they would be moved to a hot ambulatory care unit.

(4)       A number of comments were made about finance and public consultation. Ms Carpenter explained that the Board would not be able to go out to public consultation until the finance and costings had been completed. She noted that the financial analysis was being undertaken by a collaboration of finance leaders from East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust, Kent County Council, Kent Community NHS Foundation Trust and Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership. The Chairman requested that a draft copy of the public consultation be shared with the Committee before publication. Ms Carpenter undertook to provide the engagement programme and draft consultation document to the Committee.

(5)       RESOLVED that the report on the East Kent Strategy Board be noted and an update be presented to the Committee in November with a detailed plan including finance.