Agenda and minutes

1.1.        Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Angharad Davies (substitute Councillor Peter Pragnell).

1.2.        Councillor Michael Ensor: there have been several changes to the Committee’s membership following the annual council meetings of East Sussex County Council (ESCC) and the district and borough councils, although so far only two of the five district and borough councils have held their annual council meetings and so confirmed their HOSC representative.

1.3.        We warmly welcomes the following new members:

·      Councillor Angharad Davies as an ESCC member (replacing Councillor Peter Pragnell);

·      Councillor Sam Adeniji as the Lewes District Council representative (replacing Councillor Jackie Harrison-Hicks);

·      Councillor Bridget George as the Rother District Council representative designate until formal confirmation at the 27 May 2015 Rother Annual Council meeting (replacing Councillor Angharad Davies);

·      The yet to be confirmed Wealden District Council member, who will be confirmed after 27 May 2015 Wealden Annual Council meeting.

1.4.        We warmly welcome the continued membership of:

·      Councillor Sue Beaney as the Hastings Borough Council representative;

·      Councillor John Ungar as the representative designate of Eastbourne Borough Council until formal confirmation at the 27 May 2015 Annual Council meeting.

1.5.        We warmly welcome the new HOSC support officer, Giles Rossington.

Disclosures by all members present of personal interests in matters on the agenda, the nature of any interest and whether the member regards the interest as prejudicial under the terms of the Code of Conduct.

1.         

2.         

2.1.        There were none.

The purpose of this report is for HOSC to consider and comment on the Care Quality Commission Quality Report on services provided by East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust. HOSC will hear evidence from a number of witnesses.

Witnesses will give evidence in the following order:

a)    The Care Quality Commission (CQC)

b)    East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust (ESHT)

c)    East Sussex Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs)

d)    Trust Development Authority (TDA)

e)    Healthwatch

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3.         

3.1.        The Committee considered a report of the Assistant Chief Executive that recommended it consider and comment on the Care Quality Commission (CQC) Quality Report on services provided by East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust (ESHT).

3.2.        Councillor Michael Ensor: The CQC report was published on 27 March but – because of the pre-election period – this is the earliest opportunity HOSC has had to meet to discuss and consider the report and its implications.

3.3.        The CQC has carried out a follow up inspection of ESHT, but the report has not yet been published and so cannot be discussed at this meeting.

Evidence from the Care Quality Commission (CQC)

3.4.        Tim Cooper: The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has made a pledge to inspect every acute trust by the end of the 2015/16 financial year. We inspected ESHT (in September 2014) as the inspection regime prioritises high risk trusts, and the Trust was setting off some of our risk triggers.

3.5.        We had a team of 52 people for the inspection of ESHT. The Chair of the inspection was a senior doctor from a high profile London hospital who had been their Medical Director for many years and had a high international standing.

3.6.        The CQC admits that it got the timing of the inspection process wrong. Due to unforeseen circumstances within the inspection team, and some of our internal processes, the sending of our draft report to ESHT (for checking and factual accuracy) was delayed significantly.

3.7.        We met ESHT after it had added comments into the draft report regarding its factual accuracy. The meeting involved senior CQC inspectors and the Trust’s Board and was convened to help understand some of the positions we might have misrepresented.

3.8.        Some people are concerned that we did not hold a Quality Summit. We took this difficult decision at the very highest level of the organisation because – due to the delay in the submission of the draft report to ESHT – we had decided to carry out an unannounced inspection to update our position on the Trust. This meant that holding a Quality Summit the day before returning to inspect the Trust would not have been helpful.

3.9.        Instead of a Quality Summit, The CQC held a meeting with ESHT on 23 March 2015 to discuss their action plan and then began a two-day follow up inspection the next day. The CQC report on the September 2014 inspection was published on the 27 March.

3.10.     The CQC recognises that the publication of the report came at the very beginning of purdah, but we felt that the risk of publishing it then was outweighed by the risk of not publishing, for 8-10 weeks, a completed report that contained important information. Nevertheless, the CQC extends its apologies to those who were inconvenienced by the timing of the release of the report.

3.11.     There are a number of headlines that can be extracted from the CQC report under each of the five  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.