Issue - meetings

1.         Mr Scott-Clark introduced the report and explained the background to and purpose of the Health Checks programme as a future area of KCC commissioning.  He highlighted the following:-

• Health Checks is a five-year rolling programme which will invite people for a health check as they reach 40, 45, 50, etc, up to 70 years of age, so everyone is invited every five years. 
• to cover the whole Kent population in every five year cycle, it will be necessary to undertake approximately 90,000 checks per year, and KCC will need to commission sufficient providers to cover this.
• there are currently two different ways in which services can be contracted, so this will need to be rationalised.
• to make the programme work, it is essential that GPs are on board.
• there are three delivery options, set out in the report, and Option 2 is preferred and recommended by officers.

2.         Mr Scott-Clark and Ms Peachey then responded to comments and questions from Members, and the following points were highlighted:-

a)         regular health checks are not a new idea; some GPs have run similar programmes for years.  Good GPs will do this anyway, but coverage is patchy.  The new programme seeks to formalise the system and standardise checks;

b)         could KCC contract direct with Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs)? Could this be a new delivery Option 4? Ms Peachey explained that there is not currently a mechanism which would allow this to work as CCGs would be commissioning themselves, or the KCC would hold 200 contracts;

c)         how many GPs are on board? In East Kent there is almost 100% uptake, but in West Kent the level is lower. KCC will work with local GPs’ consortia (CCGs) to ensure that as many GPs as possible take it up.  The Government funding which KCC will pass on via commissioning will pay for someone in each surgery to run the Health Checks programme;

d)         what if some GPs start the programme but find that they can’t manage the extra workload?  Are community resources available to take up the slack? Where GPs do not run the programme, Community Health Trusts could do it; there is more than one way to deliver it;

e)         people will be invited to attend, but can attendance be made compulsory?  People who are the least motivated to take up an invitation are the ones who most need testing!  Compulsion would be difficult to enforce; it has to be a choice. However, evidence shows that the most deprived communities are often the least likely to take advantage of preventative health checking.  How to stimulate take-up is a challenge, and the hard-to-reach are the biggest area of risk;

f)          in my local area, I know that local health checking can be very effective.  Anyone who fails a test for hardening of the arteries is referred promptly to hospital for surgery.  As a result, there have been no deaths from this cause since the current scheme started; and

g)         each  ...  view the full minutes text for item 17