Category: Health

Health and Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Committee 8th November 2011 Part 1, Howard Cooper retires, Minutes, Declarations of Interest, Site Strategy Review

The agenda and reports for this meeting can be found here. Present Non-voting reps/co-optees (who are part of the committee) Sue Lowe Diane Hill (LINKS) Sandra Wall (Older Peoples Parliament) Councillors (part of the committee) Cllr Mike Hornby Cllr Geoffrey Watt Cllr Sheila Clarke Cllr Cherry Povall Cllr Patricia Glasman (Chair) Cllr Denise Roberts Cllr … Continue reading “Health and Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Committee 8th November 2011 Part 1, Howard Cooper retires, Minutes, Declarations of Interest, Site Strategy Review”

The agenda and reports for this meeting can be found here.

Present
Non-voting reps/co-optees (who are part of the committee)
Sue Lowe
Diane Hill (LINKS)
Sandra Wall (Older Peoples Parliament)

Councillors (part of the committee)
Cllr Mike Hornby
Cllr Geoffrey Watt
Cllr Sheila Clarke
Cllr Cherry Povall
Cllr Patricia Glasman (Chair)
Cllr Denise Roberts
Cllr Paul Doughty
Cllr Joe Walsh
Cllr Pat Williams
Cllr Bob Wilkins

Officers (there to advise the councillors and co-optees)
Howard Cooper (Interim Director of Adult Social Services, Wirral Council)
Kathy Doran, (Chief Executive NHS Cheshire, Warrington and Wirral (West Cheshire))
Gary Doherty (Acting Chief Executive, Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust)
Peter Herring (Chief Executive, Countess of Chester NHS Foundation Trust)

The Chair Cllr Glasman said that Howard Cooper was retiring in December. She thanked him for stepping in last Autumn.

Howard Cooper said she was very kind and that he had enjoyed working on the huge changes over the last year and if he was stuck for what to do on a Tuesday night he knew where to come.

Cllr Glasman introduced the people on the committee, then moved to declarations of interest. Cllr Sheila Clarke declared a personal interest in item 8, Cllr Hornby declared an interest in item 5, Cllr Patricia Glasman also declared an interest in item 5.

The minutes were agreed, due to the long agenda the couple of items from the last meeting that required responses could be raised at the end of the meeting or taken up by email. The minutes were agreed.

Cllr Glasman started with the site strategy report including the report on the vascular site strategy review. She asked the committee to listen to the report, make any queries on items except vascular, then they would take questions, followed by the clinician’s report and Kathy Doran’s report.

Gary Doherty started by asking Tina Long and Sue Green to give an introduction to the report.

Health & Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Committee 8/11/2011 Vascular Services move from Arrowe Park Hospital to Countess of Chester hospital

Unusually about forty people were in the audience of last night’s meeting, so many that Committee Room 2 had to be opened up so everybody had somewhere to sit.

The proceedings were interrupted several times, with the Chair calling for calm. The committee heard from one of the consultants at Arrowe Park Hospital Mr R Chandrasekar. It also heard from:-

Kathy Doran, Chief Executive of NHS Cheshire, Warrington and Wirral (West Cheshire)
Gary Doherty, Acting Chief Executive Wirral University Teaching Hospital (the NHS Trust that covers Arrowe Park and Clatterbridge hospitals) NHS Foundation Trust
Peter Herring, Chief Executive Countess of Chester NHS Foundation Trust

The Labour Chair read out the long history of the matter, stating that more people would be inconvenienced by longer journeys to the Countess of Chester, that Wirral had higher rates of vascular disease, that Arrowe Park Hospital was a renal centre and that it met the four criteria.

She then proposed a motion. Her motion called for the matter to be referred to Wirral Council’s Cabinet, however a Conservative amendment (accepted by Labour as friendly) agreed that vascular services shouldn’t be moved from Arrowe Park Hospital to Chester but called for a report to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee after the 12 week public consultation on the change (which will run from December to February of next year).

The amended motion was accepted and agreed unanimously by all councillors.

Sustainable Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee 20th October 2011 PACSPE Call-in

Tonight’s meeting was as the Cabinet decision of the 22nd September 2011 on the PACSPE contract had been called-in by Cllr Jeff Green, Cllr Tom Harney, Cllr Dave Mitchell, Cllr Lesley Rennie and Cllr David Elderton.
At the end of a 3 1/2 hour meeting the voting went as follows.

Labour Amendment to Conservative motion

This amendment upheld the original decision.

Votes For         : 5 (Labour councillors)
Votes Against : 5 (Conservatives councillor plus one Liberal Democrat councillor)

Abstention       : 0
Casting vote of Conservative Chair: AGAINST

Votes For        : 5 (Labour councillors)

Votes Against: 6 (Conservatives councillor plus one Liberal Democrat councillor) + Chair’s casting vote
Abstention     :  0

AMENDMENT FAILS

Conservative Motion

Votes for          : 5 (Conservative councillors plus one Liberal Democrat councillor)

Votes against: 5 (Labour councillors)

Abstentions   : 0

Casting vote of Chair: For

Votes for:          6 (Conservative councillors plus one Liberal Democrat councillor) + Chair’s casting vote

Votes against: 5 (Labour councillors)

Abstentions:  0

MOTION PASSES (Proposed Cllr John Hale, seconded Cllr Don McCubbin)

Text of Motion:

This committee notes that:

    • The Cabinet appeared to ignore, and did not even mention, the findings of the Office of Government Commerce Gateway Reviews that the Parks & Countryside Services Procurement Exercise (PACSPE) had been subjected to.
    • No attempt was made to publically question officers from the Finance Department, the Legal Department and the Procurement Unit who were members of the PACSPE Project Board as to whether the “risk” identified by District Audit, and made such play of in the Cabinet resolution could or had been satisfactorily mitigated.
    • No discussion was had by Cabinet Members of the risks of not awarding the contract.
    • No mention or discussion took place regarding stakeholder management or the views of key stakeholders about the benefits of clear quality improvements that were built into the procurement exercise. In fact, other than the view of the Council’s Trade Unions, the results of the consultation and the views of the park users and user groups were not even mentioned in a single Cabinet meeting.
    • No reference was made to the new post of Community Engagement Manager to work with Friends, stakeholders, user groups, and local Area Forums or the new key performance indicators developed through PACSPE to reflect the change to a more customer and community focused service.
    • Insufficient account seemed to have been taken of the reduction from costs of £8.1 million per year to £7.4 million per year already achieved by the PACSPE process with the potential to reduce costs by a further circa £500,000. Indeed, it is hard to understand how the Leader of of the Council characterised a £1.2 million per annum potential saving arising from PACSPE to be sufficiently marginal to be ignored.
    • No effort appeared to be made by Cabinet Members to discuss or evaluate the additional costs to Council Tax Payers of purchasing what has been accepted as worn out equipment requiring immediate replacement (circa £2.5 million) or the TUPE costs of bringing current contractor staff into the Council workforce and pension scheme, per annum or over the 10 year period.
    • No mention was made of the training and development programme for staff and volunteers or the three to six new apprentices to be created as part of PACSPE.
    • No explanation was given at Cabinet regarding the opposition to a 10 year contract that would reduce annual costs by circa £1.2 million and improve the quality of our parks and countryside, other than the expressed need contained in the resolution to reduce spending by £85 million over three years.
    • Therefore we believe that the decision to refuse to award the PACSPE contract would see the ever decreasing quality of a service starved of investment by this administration which is already characterised by going for the quick fix instead of making the difficult but necessary strategic decisions in the interests of Wirral residents.

The Committee recommends to the Cabinet

*Editor’s note will have to check rest of resolution due to noise preventing taking it down*

My guess is that the rest of it is “reconsider the decision”.

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In the interests of openness, John Brace lives opposite Bidston Hill which is covered by the PACSPE contract.

Local events of interest over the holidays – Free swimming for children at leisure centres, Birkenhead Park tennis, Tam O’Shanter

Over at the Wirral Tennis & Sports Centre there is currently the 11th Annual Easter Weekend Aikido festival.

Birkenhead Park visitor centre is currently showing (until the 29th April) a free photographic exhibition about Wirral’s industrial heritage (provided by the Friends of Birkenhead Park).

Free swimming for children over the holidays will be provided at the leisure centres. This is thanks to a decision by Tory and Lib Dem councillors last year to continue funding free swimming.

Labour in Liverpool scrapped the free swimming (brought in by Liberal Democrats), choosing to spend the money on a pay increase for its leader and £380,000 on a one day event in Shanghai.

The free swimming runs until the 1st May, at leisure centres such as nearby Europa Pools and Woodchurch Leisure Centre. A timetable can be downloaded from Wirral Council’s website of the opening times.

Birkenhead Park will also be offering free tennis coaching for under 8s, 9-15s and adults tomorrow (10am to 11am for under 8s and 11am to 12 noon for older kids and adults). Further information on activities in Birkenhead Park can be found here.

Popular Tam O’Shanter Farm in Boundary Road will also be open over the holidays for children and adults.

Cabinet meeting – 14th April 2011 – Election Special Edition – Part 3 – NHS questions

Cllr Elderton said he was asking about the other end of the age spectrum. He said his experience of Arrowe Park Hospital was rare and brief. It had been excellent regarding recent surgery he had had. In the media there had been reports regarding respect and consideration for older people with the suggestion that some were not looked after properly. How did Wirral University Teaching Hospital check on this issue.

Mr. Richards answered that they monitor quality. Cllr Elderton asked if there were any glitches regarding food and water. The Chief Executive said that ward audits were carried out and that the Director of Nursing Tina Long made unannounced weekly inspections in which they talked to patients and staff. Complaints through PALs or written complaints were also looked at. Also pressure sores, falls and adverse outcomes were investigated to resolve hotspots that could be caused by staff sickness, poor leadership or problems with management. The Biz will in the postgraduate education centre published the data.

Cllr Green referred to a discussion of the Local Strategic Partnership, who agreed with this approach.

The minutes of the meeting held on the 17th March was agreed.

Bill Norman informed the Cabinet that in respect of the Delamare Centre, ward councillors and the leader had been consulted and that it would be transferred soon.

The agenda was then reordered to take item 27 (Support for Wirral’s Coastal Towns) first.