Agenda item

To consider a presentation from the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board’s Area Director Central on the progress made on developing an area structure for the Health Board in the Conwy and Denbighshire areas.

11.00 am – 11:30 am

The Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board’s (BCUHB) Area Director for Conwy and Denbighshire, Bethan Jones introduced the BCUHB in Conwy and Denbighshire presentation.

The Area Director was welcomed to the meeting and proceeded to give a presentation on the progress made to date with developing a sub-regional area structure for the Health Board’s work in Conwy and Denbighshire.  The Area Director explained how the new structure would engage and interact with partners and stakeholders.  During her presentation the Area Director gave an overview of the Leadership Team and the Area Structure that operated below it.  She outlined the Corporate Support Services available to them, the Area Structure’s operating principles and their key priorities for the next three years. 

Responding to members questions she:

·       Confirmed that the Health Board had established three “new area” structures for North Wales, based on the local authority areas of:

Ø  Anglesey and Gwynedd

Ø  Conwy and Denbighshire, and

Ø  Flintshire and Wrexham

The base for Conwy and Denbighshire was located at Llandudno Hospital

·       Agreed that effective and timely communication was key to delivering quality services and to build up a high level of trust and confidence amongst residents.  Shortfalls in timely and effective communication between health service personnel required improvement as it posed a risk to the Board, caused undue delay in patients’ treatments at times and incurred additional costs for the health service

·       Confirmed that a great deal of work would be undertaken in relation to the Out-of-Hours Service across North Wales.  There were concerns that patients who were unable to get appointments with their own GPs were accessing the Out-of-Hours Service at the weekends

·       Confirmed that GPs contracts actually specified that they were not required to work weekends at the present time

·       Informed the Committee that there was a need to promote the availability of Minor Injuries Units (MIU) at the community hospitals to residents, together with the services they offered in order to relieve the pressures on the district general hospitals’ Accident and Emergency (A&E Departments).  Members suggested that it could be advantageous if the name of the MIUs were changed to Minor Injuries and Ailments Departments

·       Confirmed there was a need to assist people to return to their homes much quicker following a period of hospitalisation, particularly when only very minor adaptations were required e.g. fitting of handrails etc.  This work would be progressed via the “What matters” project

·       Confirmed that there were examples of both good and bad practice with respect to hospital discharge plans together with the provision of specialist equipment

·       Confirmed that in recent years, primary care had been organised into clusters with a view to building up resilience, particularly in areas such as IT and support for single doctor GP practices

·       Acknowledged that low level mental health issues had not previously been addressed by GPs, this had led to higher level intervention required in due course.

·       Advised that, at present, mental health matters formed part of the secondary healthcare sector.  However, the Area Director was of the view that this should eventually form part of the “area” work, particularly given the evidence that dementia would form a large proportion of the local health service’s work going forward

·       Another aspect which required improvement was palliative care and the need to upskill the care sector to provide palliative care rather than cause undue distress to the patient and their family by moving them into a general hospital environment for their end of life care.

Members agreed with the issue of palliative care and asked that the Board consider employing a community consultant and pharmacist with a view to supporting families etc., with palliative care.  They also asked that flexible working practices in the health service be examined to determine whether some of them were putting patients at risk.

The Corporate Director: Communities, reminded members of the important role the Single Point of Access (SPoA) Service had in delivering cohesive health and social care services to people who need support to access the right services at the right time.

BCUHB’s Area Director for Conwy and Denbighshire agreed to follow-up the following queries and report back to members in due course:

·       Whether there were any plans in place to utilise the former children’s clinic adjacent to the GP surgery at Rhuddlan for health, social care or community use

·       Why patients attending the Morfa Doc Out-of-Hours services were not permitted to collect prescriptions from the Dispensary at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd and were advised to attend the nearest duty pharmacy to collect prescriptions

·       Whether phlebotomy services could be delivered from GP practices, and

·       To arrange to assign a member of staff from the Conwy and Denbighshire Area structure to each Denbighshire County Council Member Area Group (MAG) as a point of contact for members on Health Board matters and to attend MAG meetings periodically to brief on area developments and hear local members’ views on matters.

The Committee expressed their gratitude to the Area Director of Conwy and Denbighshire for attending at the Committee meeting and briefing them accordingly.  It was:

RESOLVED that subject to the provision of the above information, and the pursual of the points raised, to receive the report.