Contact: Giles Rossington, Scrutiny Support Officer
Items
No.
Item
1.
PROCEDURAL BUSINESS
(a) Declarations of Substitutes -
Where Councillors are unable to attend a meeting, a substitute Member from the same Political
Group may attend, speak and vote in their place for that
meeting.
(b) Declarations of Interest by all
Members present of any personal interests in matters on the agenda,
the nature of any interest and whether the Members regard the
interest as prejudicial under the terms of the Code of
Conduct
(c)
Exclusion of Press and Public - To consider whether, in view of the
nature of the business to be transacted, or the nature of the
proceedings, the press and public should be excluded from the
meeting when any of the following items are under
consideration.
NOTE: Any item appearing in Part 2 of
the Agenda states in its heading the category under which the
information disclosed in the report is exempt from disclosure and
therefore not available to the public.
A
list and description of the exempt categories is available for
public inspection at Brighton and Hove Town Halls.
Minutes:
Councillor Avril
Older declared that she was attending the meeting as Substitute
Member for Councillor Trevor Alford.
Councillor Mo Marsh declared that she was
attending the meeting as Substitute Member for Councillor Craig
Turton.
Councillor Vicky Wakefield-Jarrett declared
that she was attending the meeting as Substitute Member for
Councillor Sven Rufus.
2.
MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING
Minutes:
RESOLVED –
That the minutes of the meeting held on 23 April 2008 be approved
and signed by the Chairman.
3.
CHAIRMAN'S COMMUNICATIONS
Minutes:
The
Chairman asked members whether they were satisfied that Councillor
Harmer-Strange should replace Councillor Jan Young on the Joint
Health Overview & Scrutiny Committee (JHOSC) examining the
“Fit For the Future” proposals (Councillor Young has
been appointed to the Council’s Executive and is consequently
no longer able to sit on Scrutiny bodies). Members approved this
replacement.
The
Chairman noted that she had attended a recent event organised by
the South East Coast Strategic Health Authority (SHA) concerning
the “Our Health, Our future” review of healthcare
services in the South East region (part of the national
“Darzi” review of
healthcare services). More such events are planned as part of this
review process.
The
Chairman also expressed her intention of attending a Brighton &
Hove Local Involvement Network (LINk)
meeting on June 12 and reiterated the Committee’s desire to
work closely with the Brighton & Hove LINk.
The
Chairman told Committee members that she had received a letter from
the Local Dental Committee (LDC) proposing to report to the
Committee at a later date on aspects of the new National Dental
Contract.
The
Chairman had also received a letter from Brighton & Hove City
teaching Primary Care Trust in regard to proposals to close the
Eaton Gardens branch GP surgery in Hove. Copies of this letter have
been forwarded to all City Councillors at the Chairman’s
behest.
The
Committee listened to a presentation by Darren Grayson, Chief
Executive of Brighton & Hove City teaching Primary Care Trust
(PCT). Mr Grayson and Dr Peter Devlin, an active GP in the city,
then answered members’ questions.
In response to a question concerning standards
of GP practices in deprived areas, the Committee was told that
standards were often lower in such practices. However, this did not
necessarily reflect a poor standard of care, but rather that there
were significant problems associated with the delivery of primary
healthcare in such communities in terms of encouraging patients to
present for treatment.
Poor performance does not necessarily
correlate with deprivation. For instance, city practices in higher
income areas typically perform more poorly than practices in more
deprived areas in some instances (in terms of rates of MMR
vaccination, for example).
Mr Grayson stressed that addressing health
inequalities was a key PCT priority.
In answer to a query regarding GP remuneration
for immunisation programmes, the Committee was informed that GPs
were incentivised for these programmes
in line with Government policy.
In
response to a question about longer GP opening hours, members were
told that PCTs were obliged to follow a
national mandate to encourage more flexible GP opening hours. There
were no extra funds to encourage local GPs to extend their opening
hours, but PCTs were able to re-direct
some elements of enhanced GP payments into incentivising longer opening hours. (In effect,
there will be no extra money available to GPs, but GPs who do not
offer more flexible opening times may find that their enhanced
payments are reduced.)
Dr Devlin noted that there is no unanimity
amongst city GPs either in terms of a
recognition that there is actual public demand for longer GP
opening hours or as to whether extending opening times would be
financially feasible.
Presentation by officers of Sussex Partnership Trust on the
Trust’s policies with regard to ensuring that patients are
treated with dignity and respect
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