Agenda item

NHS Updates

·         High Weald Lewes and Havens Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG)

·         Eastbourne, Hailsham and Seaford CCG

·         Hasting and Rother CCG

 

Minutes:

16.1     The Board considered updates from the three CCGs in East Sussex.

Eastbourne, Hailsham and Seaford Clinical Commissioning Group (EHS CCG)/ Hastings and Rother CCG (HR CCG)

·         Amanda Philpott has moved to a new role within the Sussex and East Surrey Sustainability and Transformation Partnership (STP).The Board thanked her for her hard work over the past five years at the CCGs and acknowledged her central role in helping to deliver the ESBT programme.

·         Adam Doyle has taken over as Chief Officer for both CCGs  and is now Chief Officer for all eight CCGs in the STP area.

·         The closer working relationship of the CCGs may deliver some savings from greater efficiencies but management costs are an incredibly small percentage of the total expenditure of the CCGs. The main benefit of working collectively is that it will enable a stronger voice from the CCGs in relation to mental health, community and acute providers. This will enable the design of services that work across the whole of Sussex and East Surrey, enabling better and more effective pathways for patients and reducing costs whilst maintaining standards of care.

·         ESBT Alliance has worked well together to improve outcomes for patients in East Sussex as evidenced by the improvement in the A&E department at East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust (ESHT) from one of the bottom to one of the top performing nationally in terms of 4 hour waiting time targets; and reducing Delayed Transfer of Care (DTOC) by a considerable amount. Unfortunately, however, the two CCGs did not deliver their budget for 17/18 and are now in legal directions.

·         The CCGs have a £32m financial deficit control total that if achieved will result in an additional £32m investment in the population of the two CCGs. The CCGs are working hard to achieve this goal.

·         No decision has been made in relation to closing walk-in centres at either Hastings or Eastbourne. The CCGs have a duty to develop UTCs by December 2019 and NHS England has dictated what services they must contain – e.g., radiology and pathology, which are complex services that are difficult to establish outside a hospital – and this is driving the proposals around reconfiguring urgent care services. It is recognised that in Hastings the hospital is likely difficult to access for a particular cohort of patients with chaotic lifestyles. The CCGs are currently developing the best way in which the needs of this cohort can be met whilst still meeting the prescriptive requirements of the UTCs, and as a result no decision has been made about the location of the UTCs in Hastings or Eastbourne. The issue is less problematic in Eastbourne as the Eastbourne District General Hospital (EDGH) is more centrally located within the town than the Conquest Hospital.

 

High Weald Lewes Havens Clinical Commissioning Group (HWLH CCG)

·           HWLH CCG has a planned deficit control total of £9.2m savings that will also, if achieved, result in investment of £9.2m for the healthcare of patients.

·           Demand for activity is continuing to increase and to mitigate the CCG is increasingly working at scale across the eight CCGs in the STP looking for efficiencies and unwarranted variation in the way care is provided.

·           Winter planning is underway and is happening during a time when demand is already very high. Mitigating actions are being put in place to reduce levels of demand over winter such as publicising preventative measures, for example, beginning a flu vaccination awareness campaign.