Issue - items at meetings - South Downs Health NHS Trust - integration with West Sussex Community Healthcare Services

Presentation from Andy Painton, Chief Executive of South Downs Health NHS Trust (SDH), on progress to integrate SDH services with West Sussex community services (copy of slides attached).

52.1    This item was introduced by Andrew Harrington, Acting Chief Executive of South Downs Health NHS Trust (SDH), and by Dr Rose Turner, SDH Medical Director. Andy Painton, SDH Chief Executive was unable to attend this meeting due to ill health.

52.2    In response to a query regarding the time-scale for integration with West Sussex community services, Mr Harrington told members that he was very confident that the integration would take place on schedule. SDH and West Sussex community services have been working together under a management contract since August 2009 and are effectively already integrated. The main challenge is to ensure that the new organisation is registered swiftly with the Care Quality Commission (currently SDH and West Sussex community services are registered separately). The Care Quality Commission has given assurances that it will expedite this registration.

52.3    In answer to a question concerning how the ongoing stakeholder consultation could be expected to feed in to the integration process, given the brief period remaining before integration takes place, Mr Harrington told members that the bulk of consultation responses thus far had enjoined the organisations to integrate as speedily as possible. However, should there be significant responses in favour of a different approach, this would be reflected in the trust’s planning processes.

52.4    Responding to questions about SDH’s high vacancy rate, Mr Harrington explained that these vacancies did not equate to unfilled posts; rather, although SDH had a high level of permanent vacancies, the great bulk of these were being filled by seconded staff, staff acting up, bank or agency staff etc. The recruitment difficulties have largely been due to uncertainty about the trust’s future, and once SDH is integrated with West Sussex services, it is anticipated that it will be much easier to recruit to a larger and more sustainable organisation (recent successful appointments are already beginning to demonstrate this). The current high vacancy rate does have cost implications (although this is largely in terms of using agency staff, and the bulk of vacancies have been temporarily filled by other means), and also implications for risk, continuity of care etc.

52.5    Mr Harrington told the committee that SDH had found managing the current year’s budget challenging, although the trust did not intend to overspend. The costs of integration had inevitably been a factor in this, although there had been PCT support to help meet the costs of integration.

52.6    Mr Harrington told members that integration would allow SDH to make savings, particularly in terms of management costs. This was very important given the anticipated contraction in funding across the next three years. Integration would also facilitate the improvement of a number of services, giving SDH the opportunity to cluster synergetic services together in order to improve outcomes. The integrated trust would also benefit from an increased level of medical input (currently SDH’s ratio of doctors to other staff is rather low). In addition, the new entity would be in a position to be much more proactive: developing solutions to local issues rather than simply implementing commissioning decisions.

52.7    The Chairman thanked Mr Harrington and Dr Turner for their contributions.