NHS Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin Board Meeting – 28 June 2023

NHS Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin Integrated Care Board on Wednesday 28 June was opened by Chair, Sir Neil Mckay, who welcomed everyone to the meeting and noted there was full agenda to get through. He acknowledged the ongoing industrial action we are continuing to experience, with the impending five-day Junior Doctor strike and noted how he hoped a resolution would be met soon. Sir Neil also welcomed the long-awaited workforce plan from the Department of Health and Social Care which is due to published later this week and is expected to lay out the government’s strategy for deployment, employment and recruitment of NHS staff.

Patient’s Story: Falls prevention

Alison Bussey presented a patient story, highlighting the success of the Falls Prevention pilot, Fit4all which aims to improve the quality of life of our ageing population through community exercise classes, falls awareness training and tailored programmes.

In the 6-month period since launch, the service has had a remarkable 823 referrals, helping to prevent falls and reduce ambulance call out costs. The programme has now ended, as funding has ended. A business case is now being put together to secure long-term funding to continue this programme of work.

ICB CEO Update Report

Simon Whitehouse, CEO, presented his ICB CEO update report highlighting the GP Access Recovery Plan to the Board. There was agreement amongst the Board that more time to discuss primary care and access was required, especially with the new statutory commissioning requirements which includes dentistry, optometry, and pharmacy. The ICS Digital Strategy and the importance of the digital agenda was highlighted, it was noted that as a system we not only need the infrastructure but access to the infrastructure. It was agreed that the link between premature mortality and SMI (severe mental illness) and deprivation was a particular concern for our system and a fuller discussion/review was required and should be brought back to the Board at a later date.

Joint Forward Plan (JFP)

Claire Parker, Director of Partnerships and Place, and colleagues were commended on their excellent work pulling together Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin’s JFP and involving partners, stakeholders and the public, via the Big Health and Wellbeing Conversation.

Claire Parker thanked everyone for their involvement and reminded people that the JFP would not be a static document, but an organic plan that would constantly be revised with ongoing engagement. However, as it stands the JFP now aligns with a number of other system strategies (and plans), including the local authorities’ Health and Wellbeing Strategies and the system improvement, operation and financial plan, the Hospital Transformation Programme and Local Care Transformation Programme, to name but a few.

Operational Plan Update

Claire Skidmore, Chief Finance Officer, gave an update on the operational plan and highlighted one significant change post submission that some funding (£2.9m) had been released to help improve our position as a system so the deficit was £57.1m (rather than £60m).

Claire thanked Julie and her team for the huge amount of work that had been done to produce a data set that can be proactively used. She also highlighted that in the background they were developing a more public friendly version of the plan that would be more meaningful and easier to understand.

Learning Disability and autistic people (LeDeR) Annual Report

Alison Bussey, Chief Nursing Officer, presented the LeDeR report and noted there had been key improvements in care for people with learning disability and autism to reduce health inequalities and prevent people from dying early. Key clinical areas to focus on included cancer, dementia, urology and respiratory. Good practice has been identified which includes having a familiar staff member and MDT teams were best. It was also noted that good progress had been made with the Oliver McGowen training. However, there is still work to be done, such as improving inconsistencies in the annual health check across the county, ensuring resemble adjustments are made etc.

System governance and performance

Sir Neil commended the Integrated Performance Report. Headlines from the report note that there are two significant pressures in the system. Urgent and Emergency Care (UEC) and our financial position. UEC has seen some improvement in recent months, particularly with ambulance handover times, however we are still struggling with our 4-hour target. For finance whilst we are only in month two, we already have a £4m deficit. However, there is still time to get this efficiency back over the year, but this is a huge challenge, especially with our workforce challenges and use of agency staff.

Two Annual Reports have been developed this year, with two sets of Accounts. At the meeting the Board meeting both Annual Reports and Accounts were formally signed off. All paperwork is being submitted on Friday, 29 June further to the Boards agreement. Thanks, and well done was passed on to all those involved in producing the annual reports, and it was fed back that there had been a good audit, with useful recommendations to take forward.

Board Committee Reports

The Finance Committee’s Terms of Reference was approved, and a number of committee reports were assured including Quality and Performance Committee Chair’s Report, Audit & Risk Committee Chair’s Report, Finance Committee Chair’s Report, Remuneration Committee Chair’s Report, Strategy committee Chair’s Report, System People Committee Chair’s Report, Primary Care Commissioning Committee Chair’s Report and Integrated Delivery Committee Chair’s Report.

The Chair, Sir Neil noted that the Good Governance Institute (GGI) was looking at the system’s governance and how things could be simplified. Alison Smith, Director of Corporate Affairs, will email all chairs of committees to request the completion of a survey and set up meetings with the GGI. In terms of timing, the first phase will be a mapping phase which is due to be finished by end of July.

The next public NHS Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin Board will be on Wednesday, 27 September with a private development session being held towards the end of July.

To view the full agenda and papers from the Board meeting or to view the recording of the meeting, please click here.