Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Lamb and Fower.  Councillor Sandford was in attendance as substitute for Councillor Fower and Councillor Todd was in attendance as substitute for Councillor Lamb.

At this point Members must declare whether they have an interest, whether personal or prejudicial, in any of the items on the agenda. Members must also declare if they are subject to their party group whip in relation to any items under consideration.

No declarations of interest were made.

The minutes of the meeting held on 14 March 2011 were approved as an accurate record.

The decision notice for each decision will bear the date on which it is published and will specify that the decision may then be implemented on the expiry of 3 working days after the publication of the decision (not including the date of publication), unless a request for call-in of the decision is received from any two Members of a Scrutiny Committee or Scrutiny Commissions.  If a request for call-in of a decision is received, implementation of the decision remains suspended for consideration by the relevant Scrutiny Committee or Commission.

There were no requests for call-in to consider

The Interim Director for Primary Care introduced the report. The Commission were informed that the consultation document had taken into consideration comments made by the Commission at its meeting held in January 2011 in that it should be genuine and not just about closing Alma Road and that the document contained all the information and evidence to support the thinking of NHS Peterborough. Members were reminded that the Primary Care and Urgent Care Commissiong Strategies were required because the NHS services needed to adapt to change.

5.1     The key issues for change were:

Primary care

•          The population was growing and changing and NHS services needed to adapt to this

•          Premises at some practices were affecting services and would not meet new standards in April 2012. This affected 1 in 3 patients particularly in relatively deprived wards where health outcomes were much lower.  These were long standing problems. Key areas affected were:

–        North Street, 63 Lincoln Road, Burghley Road, Church Street

–        Dogsthorpe, Parnwell and Welland

–        Hampton

–        Orton

•          There was a natural move away from smaller practices.  The Primary Care Trust needed to plan ahead for this and not make separate decisions on practices as it had in the past

•          It was difficult for patients at some surgeries to get an appointment.  This might lead to patients using other services

Urgent Care

•          Patients had reported that the system was difficult to navigate and there were too many overlaps

•          Too many minor cases were attending the hospital Emergency Department

•          Peterborough had two walk-in centres which duplicated each other and services provided by GP practices in hours and the out of hours GP services

•          The City Care Centre was not used to its full potential.  The Walk In centre and out of hours GP services must be subject to competitive procurement – this was an opportunity

Efficiency Requirements

•          NHS Peterborough needed to identify extra funding for

–        Increasing demand and new treatments

–        Increasing costs and maintaining infrastructure

–        Repaying historical debt

•          The growth funding NHS Peterborough (NHSP) would receive would only cover inflation costs

•          To fund the anticipated priority costs, NHSP needed to save £40m per year by 2015/16 in its £310m budget

5.2     The proposed strategy was:

Vision

-          Move over time to fewer, larger GP practices to improve quality and efficiency

-          Simplify and clearly communicate Urgent Care System

Overarching changes

•          Ensure every practice achieved a minimum standard for access to GP appointments

•          Provide extra information to help patients choose the right service and GP practice

•          Where contracts end for practices with a list size of 4000 or below, and there was capacity nearby, ask patients to register with another practice.

•          Competitive process to select new provider for GP Out of Hours and Walk In Centre Provider.

5.3         The options for change were:

Option 1 – Do nothing

Option 2 – Partially achieve the vision:  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.