Agenda item

38.1     The Chair welcomed David Clayton-Smith, the new Chair of East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust (ESHT) to the meeting. Mr Clayton-Smith told the committee that the new ESHT Chief Executive, Dr Adrian Bull, will be starting work soon. The trust has also recently appointed a new Finance Director and a new Non-Executive Director. Mr Clayton-Smith thanked Richard Sunley for all he had done as Acting Chief Executive. Mr Clayton-Smith also told members that he was determined to rebuild ESHT’s relationships with stakeholders.

38.2     The Chair commended the Scrutiny Review Board report to the committee and thanked all the ESHT witnesses who had agreed to take part in the review.

38.3     Cllr Angharad Davies commented that the surgery sub-committee was impressed by the improvements that had been made to surgical wards. However, it was worrying that surgical beds were being taken up by medical patients: ESHT needs to think innovatively about how to accommodate medical patients without impacting on surgery.

38.4     Julie Eason commented that the maternity sub-committee had found that the maternity wards were cleaner and less cluttered than previously. It is too early to tell whether there has been a genuine change for the better in terms of culture.

38.5     Cllr Bob Standley commented that the pharmacy sub-committee had found a very positive team of workers who communicated openly with each other. It was particularly good to see that the team recognised that the CQC had made valid criticisms of previous arrangements. Delays in the discharge of patients from hospital, including delays caused by having to wait for discharge medicines, remain a concern.

38.6     Cllr Alan Shuttleworth commented that the patient records sub-committee had been impressed by the actions taken to address this issue. However, it remained unclear whether the funding to digitally tag all records had been found and whether there had been a final decision to store all records at the Apex Way site.

38.7     Cllr Frank Carstairs commented that the outpatients sub-committee was impressed with both the quality and motivation of staff in the department and by the improvements made to the call centre.

38.8     The Committee RESOLVED to: 1) endorse the Review Board report on ESHT Quality Improvement; and 2) agree to refer it to ESHT, the NHS Trust Development Authority and to the Care Quality Commission for consideration.

38.9     Richard Sunley, Acting ESHT Chief Executive, welcomed the report, which he described as very fair. The trust will respond formally in writing to the report recommendations. ESHT does recognise the medical bed pressures described in the report: speeding up the discharge of those patients medically fit for discharge is a priority for the trust and for the local health and care system. ESHT has added an additional 100 beds across its two hospital sites in recent years. The challenge now is principally to reduce length of stay.

38.10   Richard Sunley added that maternity wards had previously not been audited for cleanliness frequently enough and standards had slipped. This has now been addressed. There has also been an increased focus on incident-reporting following the CQC inspections and there has been a 40% increase in reporting of low level incidents (serious incident reporting always was robust).

38.11   The trust has now appointed a new Chief Pharmacist and is happy with progress in this area. Did Not Attend (DNA) rates for outpatients appointments have improved recently. In terms of patient records, there had been a long term lack of investment in this service. However, significant improvements have now been made. An independent review on the plans to move records storage to Apex Way will report soon. The trust is still exploring details of the planned move with employee representatives.

38.12   Cllr Ungar told members that he was concerned that the previous HOSC approval of the East Sussex maternity reconfiguration was predicated upon a capital improvement programme (including the development of the Eastbourne Midwife-Led Delivery Unit) that may not now be delivered. Should these improvements not be made, the reconfiguration decision should be reconsidered. The Chair responded that he was not minded to revisit the maternity argument at this point, but that he would ensure that the ESHT response to the Scrutiny Review Board report explicitly addressed the issue of this capital funding.

38.13   Julie Eason told members that she was unhappy with the wording of Recommendation 1 in the Scrutiny Review report. She proposed the deletion of the phrase “and is capable of delivering.” The Chair declined to accept this proposal, noting that the committee had already agreed to endorse the report and its recommendations. There would be ample opportunity to debate this issue at future meetings.