Issue - meetings

To consider a report of the Corporate Director for People.

The document is the Annual Portfolio Performance and Resource Report (PPRR) for the Health and Wellbeing Portfolio for 2014/15. This provides a summary of progress in delivering the portfolio priorities and budgets over the year and specifically during the fourth quarter of 2014/15. It includes full-year out-turn performance and financial data for the Portfolio, or forecast / provisional data where this is not yet available. The report also includes the final position for the 2014/15 portfolio savings programme.

Scrutiny Committee is asked to:

a)    Consider the Annual Portfolio Performance and Resource Report;  

b)   Review the progress against priorities, performance, budgets and savings targets for 2014/15;

c)    Highlight key areas of and responsibility for taking forward corrective action to address any performance or resource issues;

d)   Highlight any significant issues or changes to be fed back to the Executive alongside the Corporate Performance and Resource Report;

e)    Identify how areas of strong performance and good practice can be shared in other services.

Gaynor Alexander, Simon Finch, 0161 474 3186/ 4019, gaynor.alexander@stockport.gov.uk  / simon.finch@stockport.gov.uk

The Deputy Director of Public Health submitted a report of the Corporate Director for People (copies of which had been circulated) providing an update on the delivery of portfolio priorities, budgets and capital programmes for the Health & Wellbeing Portfolio during the fourth quarter of 2014/15.

The Executive Councillor (Independence & Wellbeing) and a representative of the Service Director (Adult Social Care) attended the meeting to answer questions from the Scrutiny Committee.

The following comments were made/ issues raised:-

·         There remained considerable uncertainty about health devolution in Greater Manchester.

·         Future performance reports might usefully be structured around the four elements of the Stockport Together programme.

·         Health inequalities remained a cause for concern. There were also concerns about healthy life expectancy and the fact for those in deprived communities had shorter lives but the onset of ill-health was much earlier than for those in the least deprived areas.

Concerns were raised about the impact of Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DOLS) Supreme Court judgement and performance in Stockport. It was reported that it was anticipated that up to 200 individuals may meet the criteria. The significant number of care homes in the Borough also presented particular challenges. The Council had so far processed approximately 600 applications, with 130 in process and 300 awaiting allocation. There was a significant backlog with applications that the Council did not have the resource to process and so had taken on a private company to assist. The £750,000 allocation from Government had assisted with this process but fell short of meeting the additional costs associated with implementing the requirements of the judgement.

It was also reported that as a result of the judgement there were a number of unforeseen consequences, one of the most distressing of which was that those subject to a DOLS was considered to be in ‘state detention’ so when they died were subject to additional processes that families often found distressing. The Council was seeking to work with partners to ensure proportionate measures were in place for those on end-of-life care pathways.

It was also reported that the Law Commission was undertaking a significant project to review the current legislative basis for DOLS with a view to making recommendations to Government on possible reform. The Commission would be undertaking consultation during the summer of 2015.

Councillors expressed concern at the scale of the challenge presented by DOLS and the resource capacity to respond.

RESOLVED – (1) That the Health & Wellbeing Portfolio Performance Annual Report for 2014/15 be noted.

(2) That the Service Director (Adult Social Care) be requested to submit a report to the 28 July 2015 meeting setting out the background to the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards and the current challenges facing the Council, with a view to this Scrutiny Committee providing a response or informing a response to the Law Commissioning Consultation on Mental Capacity and Detention.

(3) That the Democratic Services Manager be requested to arrange for agenda items at a future meeting on health inequalities and healthy life expectancy.

(4) That the Democratic Services Manager be requested to circulate the Stockport Clinical Commissioning Group Annual Report to members for their information.