Agenda item - Chair's Communications

The Chair of the Board will start the meeting with a short update on recent developments on health and wellbeing.

3.1            The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting and noted that at the Health and Wellbeing Board meeting on the 24^th March 2015 approval was given for the City Council and the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) to undertake preliminary engagement with potential providers in the city to explore a new model of care for Community Short Term Service (CSTS) beds.

3.2            These beds are provided in a range of units:

·      Craven Vale – City Council – 24 beds

·      Knoll House – City Council  – 20 beds

·      Highgrove Nursing Home – Victoria Nursing Home – 21 beds

3.3            He noted that since 2012 a higher proportion of people were being discharged from hospital straight to their own home with support from community short term services, and the comparatively smaller proportion of people that do require care in one of the bedded units are the most dependent and have the most complex needs.

3.4            The current service specification for CSTS beds has been in place since 2012 and a new model of care is required to meet the needs of people with high levels of complexity and dependency.  Potential providers were therefore invited in April to put forward their ideas for what the new model of care for CSTS beds could look like. These were submitted in May and meetings were then held with all interested providers to explore their ideas in more detail.

3.5            A total of 6 providers submitted their ideas and met with City Council and CCG commissioners. These included existing and new providers. Given the level of interest evidenced for delivery of a new model of care for CSTS beds, and the variety and complexity of the ideas presented, the Health and Wellbeing Board is asked to note that the CCG and the City Council will continue to develop the new model of care over the coming 3 months, taking on board the options and ideas gathered from the recent engagement exercise, with a view to presenting more formal proposals on a way forward at the October meeting of the Board.

3.6            He stated that these proposals will also be informed by the capacity and demand review that Ernst and Young recently completed for the CCG, which will provide evidence for the number and type of community beds that the city requires to meet the needs of the local population.  

3.7            The Chair confirmed that a partnership event would be taking place on the 15^th September here at Brighthelm from 2.00 to 5.00pm and that the next Board meeting would therefore be on Tuesday 20^th October at 4.00pm.