Agenda item

Mrs N Teesdale, Associate Director of Commissioning at the Kent and Medway CCG was in attendance for this item.

1.         The Kent and Medway CCG had provided a paper with an update on the suspension of DMC Healthcare’s contract to provide dermatology services in Medway, Swale, Dartford, Gravesham and Swanley, the transfer of patients to a temporary service of Sussex Community Dermatology Service (SCDS) and the commission of an independent harm review.

2.         Mrs N Teesdale provided a verbal update highlighting the state of dermatology services since the report was published. She confirmed that all patient information managed by DMC Healthcare had been transferred to Sussex Community Dermatology Service’s (SCDS) patient information system. Triaging had taken place, all patients on the backlog had been seen or had appointments scheduled, a referral to assessment time of eight weeks was noted. The backlog of patients waiting had reduced from around 7,500 a month ago to 800 at the time of the meeting. New patients to the service were being seen within 8 weeks.

3.         Mrs Teesdale confirmed that a deed of termination for the DMC Healthcare contract was to be signed the week commencing 28 September 2020. She explained that the formal process to award a new contract could not begin until the previous contract had been terminated. When asked to confirm when a timeline for the future services would be available, Mrs Teesdale confirmed that a long-term plan would be available following the termination of the contract and she offered to provide the committee with a briefing.

4.         Mrs Teesdale responded to comments and questions from the committee, including the following:-

a)         asked what progress had been made by the harm review, Mrs Teesdale confirmed that lower than expected numbers had been noted, this included 18 serious incidents and 5 patients who had waited significant periods for cancer services. She further noted that until patients had completed their treatment programmes it would not be possible to accurately determine the level of harm;

b)         asked to what extent the telephone counselling helpline had been used by patients, Mrs Teesdale stated that initial usage had been high, at approximately 100 calls per day, which had been largely comprised of patients requesting status updates. Following the dissemination of status updates, helpline usage had reduced to near zero. She confirmed that the helpline would shut down on 4 October 2020 with SCDS operating a conventional service helpline for patients;

c)         Mrs Teesdale was asked to reassure the committee that future dermatology service providers would meet service demand. She confirmed that SCDS had begun providing weekly live feed data and monthly full contract data to the CCG and that this monitoring policy would be used with future contracts. A contrast was made with the previous arrangement with DMC where service data had not been received for the first six months of the contract. Reasons given for this included a decision by the CCG to work collaboratively with the provider instead of seeking monitoring data (in light of an unexpected 8,000 patients waiting for treatment that had not been declared by the previous provider) followed by delays in receiving data due to Covid-19. Mrs Teesdale highlighted the swift action taken by the CCG to suspend DMC’s contract within 24 hours of receiving unsatisfactory data returns;  

d)         asked whether there had been a financial impact as a result of appointing an interim service provider, Mrs Teesdale confirmed that no negative financial impact had occurred and the SCDS service was operating at an identical tariff to the previous contract;

e)         Mrs Teesdale was asked whether a transfer of equipment between service providers had been necessary and if so had occurred. She confirmed that SCDS were responsible for sourcing all equipment and consumables for their temporary contract;

f)          it was requested that Mrs Teesdale confirm whether the data transfer had occurred between service providers and to outline the measures used to verify the information. She reassured the committee that the data transfer had taken place and that independent validators had been used to validate all data sets prior to the transfer; and

g)         asked to confirm whether the data reporting requirements had been provided to the temporary service provider and had been written into future contracts, Mrs Teesdale confirmed that the reporting requirements had been written into the temporary service contract and would be included in future dermatology service contracts.

5.         It was RESOLVED that the report be noted and that the CCG provide an update once the service had commissioned a new provider.