Health and Wellbeing Committee scrutiny of Care Quality Commission inspection of Kent House.
Last night, councillors on Wirral Council’s Health and Wellbeing Committee expressed their concern at not knowing about an inspection report highlighting failures in safeguarding at Kent House, Oxton, Wirral until January 2012 during a joint health committee meeting of Wirral and Cheshire Council. Kent House is a Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust inpatient facility providing services for adults with a learning disability.
The Chair, Cllr Patricia Glasman was most concerned that the Health and Wellbeing Committee had known nothing about this until months after the critical inspection had happened. The new Director of Adult Social Services said that he would make sure that these sorts of things were brought to the Committee’s attention in the future.
The Chief Executive Sheena Cumiskey and Andy Styring, Director of Operations at Kent House answered questions from the committee and detailed what had been done since the September inspection to achieve compliance. The initial unannounced inspection had found that Kent House was falling short in the areas of care and welfare of patients who use their services, safeguarding people who used the services from abuse and the quality of services provided.
However since then, improvements had been made and a later re-inspection on 13th December 2011 showed that Kent House had made improvements in the area of safeguarding.
First we have the ever popular Health and Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting of the 6th February 2012 which was (after recording stopped due to running out of tape adjourned). Now with subtitles it has been viewed (at the time of writing) 228 times, has been embedded in an article on Wirral Leaks and a blog post here.
The Chair herself of the Health and Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Committee, Cllr Patricia Glasman even talked to me about it on the 13th February 2012! After she’d talked to me I realised I needed to put subtitles on it.
Now with subtitles, this video has been viewed by many viewers in the UK and a viewer from Finland who watched it twice! Speakers in it are Cllr Patricia Glasman, Cllr Cherry Povall, Cllr Simon R Mountney and Bill Norman.
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Secondly another adjourned meeting on the same subject (although this time the entire meeting and not just a segment). This one is the Council meeting from Monday 13th February, again on the AKA report.
The Council meeting from Monday 13th February is adjourned to Monday 20th February at 7pm.
The Health and Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Committee from Monday 6th February is adjourned to (date unknown to be decided by Chair and spokespersons).
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Bill Norman said that a number of names should be disclosed to councillors. One of those names was his and he had no reason in them not knowing which number he was in the report (although some may have already guessed). He was working towards giving them this information, but pointed out it had been a non-statutory inquiry.
Cllr Simon Mountney asked if he was correct that there was no unredacted report?
Bill Norman said there was no unredacted report in his possession. However there was a list of names with the draft report which had been circulated to a small number of officers and councillors.
Cllr Paul Doughty said he found it amazing that the party opposite were looking towards making political points.
Cllr Mike Hornby said it was the people of Wirral who’ve suffered by it being “swept under the carpet” and the “deplorable” way it had been handled.
Cllr Sheila Clarke said as Carer’s Champion she had hit the “brick wall of legal” and didn’t know of the report into Kent House which went into serious safeguarding issues regarding its vulnerable residents. She said that someone from the Cheshire and Wirral Partnership [NHS Foundation Trust] was here tonight. She said all this was done by bypassing the formal scrutiny process.
The Chair, Cllr Patricia Glasman said it was on the Cabinet papers and went before Cabinet on the 2nd February and that it had “not been kept from view”.
Simon Wagener talked about accountability and transparency. He wanted to echo the views of users and carers, who didn’t believe that the option of anonymity should’ve been extended. He said that those identified should be held responsible and have to be held to account. Mr. Wagener said a senior manager in the Department of Adult Social Services had said their responsibility lay to the Director of the Department. He said this was a conflict of interest and that they need to be held accountable to the people they serve and carers. He said to have those people “kept in the dark” was “not in the public interest” or in service user’s interests.
Graham Hodkinson, Director of Adult Social Services said that all officers had a clear responsibility to the people they serve. He suggested that the officer had wrongly informed [Simon] and that they all have legal and professional registration as individual professionals which covered accountability and responsibility. He agreed that officers are accountable to the people of Wirral.
Simon Wagener said there was mention of an ongoing review, who had this been conducted by?
Cllr Mike Hornby said the report had been commissioned by the Council and paid for by taxpayers.
Bill Norman said yes it was paid for by the Council, but they had been informed by Anna that assurances had been made that names were not appearing. It was a voluntary process and assurances had been given, therefore there was a legal and moral obligation to respect this, which they were seeking to clarify through independent lawyers. He understood they were working towards that goal but there might be legal consequences.
She asked for declarations of interest. Cllr Denise Roberts said she was a member of the Members’ Working Party and wanted clarification on whether it was an interest. In Bill Norman’s view it wasn’t an interest she needed to declare.
The Chair asked for any party whipping arrangements, none were declared. She said she had something to read and circulated a motion. A Conservative councillor asked for a ten minute recess so after three minutes the meeting was adjourned.
After the adjournment the Chair asked if she wanted them to read out her motion. They did, so she read it out in full.
Cllr Cherry Povall, spokesperson for the Conservative Party said her first point was that they’d only just been handed the Improvement Plan and that it was designed to bypass scrutiny.
The Chair pointed out that the Action Plan was published on the intranet on the 2nd February and had been available since then.
Cllr Simon Mountney said, “It’s taken four years almost to get to this point and members of the public are currently asking for us to name and shame. Well to be honest I think it’s even more than that. I think it’s name and hold to account. If people prove under that process to have something to answer, then in fact there might even be prosecutions to follow, as I understand the police are involved in this.
So how do you expect to sweep this under the carpet whilst there is a police investigation into this issue is beyond me? This is one of the most serious matters this Council…”
The Chair interrupted and denied that they were trying to sweep it under the carpet.
Cllr Simon Mountney said “Well I think by this statement that you’ve issued just now, what you’re looking to do is move on. Well I’m not ready to move on and I don’t think my colleagues are ready to move on. We need to know who is responsible for this and at this point in time we don’t! We haven’t even had a non redacted version of the report. How can you expect this Council to move on when we don’t know who was responsible for one of most serious issues to happen in this Council for many years?
It’s just beyond me how you have the audacity to issue this kind of report saying let’s move on. We don’t have the answers yet! How can we possibly move on? The report talks about people turning up with baseball bats and you want us to move on? It’s just absolutely beyond me, I don’t understand how your party and you as an individual can continue with this ridiculous issue that it’s going to go away.
This is not going to go away and I’m going to make sure it doesn’t go away till I get the answers that I’ve been seeking for four years. Now we’re getting to a point perhaps where the answers will start to come out, because it will go to a public investigation of some sort. It will. So don’t, let’s not try and sweep it under the carpet because that’s what you’re trying to do.”
The Chair, Cllr Patricia Glasman said “I’m not trying to sweep anything under the carpet. Nobody is and I’m…”
Cllr Simon Mountney said “You are trying to sweep it under the carpet by saying let’s move on!”
The Chair said, “I would be very grateful if nobody here tonight reduces this to the level of personal abuse. With regards to the issue of naming names, I’d be grateful if the Director of Law could answer that.”
Cllr Simon Mountney asked who had put together the statement, whether it was the Chair and if it wasn’t he’d like to know who?
Bill Norman, Director of Law, HR & Asset Management said, “Following a previous meeting of this committee I was informed there was a request from a number of Members to seek an unredacted copy of the Anna Klonowski report. Errm when we received the request for an unredacted version…”
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Councillors
Cllr Andrew Hodson (Chair)
Cllr Simon Mountney (Vice-Chair)
Cllr Patricia Glasman (Spokesperson)
Cllr Ann Bridson (Spokesperson)
Cllr Ron Abbey
Cllr Chris Blakeley
Cllr Pat Hackett
Cllr Adam Sykes
Cllr Jerry Williams
Officers
Mark Delap, Committee Clerk
Surjit Tour, Head of Legal and Member Services
Another Wirral Council officer
Two members of the public.
The Chair, Cllr Andrew Hodson said good evening to everyone and commented on the fact that Cllr Bridson was looking better since he’d last seen her, but was not looking 100%.
Cllr Ron Abbey said there’d been no improvement in the Chair.
The Chair, Cllr Andrew Hodson said it had been three weeks since he’d seen Cllr Bridson and she looked a lot better. He asked those present to turn their mobile phones off. Cllr Hodson then asked councillors if they had any declarations of interest to make.
1. Declarations of Interest
Cllr Patricia Glasman asked for advice on a declaration of interest.
Cllr Tony Smith arrives late and apologised for being late.
Cllr Patricia Glasman says that it is about her role as Chair of the Health and Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Committee and the work of the Health and Wellbeing Board.
Surjit Tour replied that it was up to Cllr Glasman if she wished to declare an interest.
Cllr Bridson said on page three, the top item there was a summary of complaints made against councillors that had led to a vibrant discussion. She said she had asked for costs to be presented, this had been agreed and noted.
Surjit Tour said he was happy to give to councillors this information as soon as possible.
Cllr Bridson said it was important the public knew how much they were spending when making inappropriate complaints.
Cllr Blakeley said it had been referred to the Standards Committee.
Surjit Tour said he would check it and apologised.
Cllr Chris Blakeley said it had gone to the last Standards Committee meeting, however some final costs had yet to be decided.
