Agenda item

At the request of Board, this is a standing item on the agenda.

Members and officers presented are invited to update the Board on developments with the Stockport Together Programme.

The Chair invited partners present to update the Board on Stockport Together.

Andrew Webb emphasised the range of activity since the last meeting, including:-

·         the detailed draft Business Cases for the new models of care had been agreed in principal, with a range of caveats and would be subject to final adoption later in the year;

·         providers had now created an integrated leadership team, including the appointment of an interim Managing Director;

·         ‘Stockport Neighbourhood Care’ had been created as an embryonic Multi-Speciality Community Provider (MSCP);

·         a number of senior positions had been appointed to;

·         an implementation plan for the next 18 months had been developed, and this had identified the key inter-dependencies in the programme;

·         an alliance agreement between providers had been developed that would allow them to operate as if a single organisation, and was currently  proceeding through each organisations governance arrangements;

·         work continued to resolve commissioning and contracting challenges;

·         the provider procurement process had resumed, and Government guidance had now been published that would support that process;

·         detailed development work was underway for a Neighbourhood Led Accountable Care Trust;

·         partners were acting more effectively as if a single organisation in dealing with performance issues in the acute sector and, while challenges remained the situation was improving;

·         the resources used to address Emergency Department performance issues had impacted on the capacity to deliver the neighbourhood model which had progressed been slower than planned, although this was to be addressed;

·         subject to approval from the Council, the CCG and the Council as commissioners would begin stakeholder consultation on the Stockport Together programme.

Donna Sager provided the following additional update:-

·         Viaduct Health had now appointed an interim CEO;

·         as part of the shift in attention back to developing the neighbourhood approach there was work ongoing to explore how to improve GP clinical systems to reduce pressure and make it easier for patients to get appointments;

·         Neighbourhood Team recruitment was underway but was challenging;

·         ensuring sufficient physical space for locality based services was also proving challenging as many GP practices had limited capacity to host services.

Assurances were sought that following the efforts made by partners to address pressures on the local health and care economy that the programme was now ‘on track’. In response it was stated that from this point in the year the economy was now in a good position, including improved performance in ED. It was emphasised that while sustaining any further improvements would be challenging, the ‘system’ was now much improved and in a stronger position than it was a year earlier.

It was also commented that the Clinical Commissioning Group remained concerned about performance at the Hospital and that Winter was likely to be very challenging. An example was provided of senior clinicians at the hospital not being aware of services available outside of ED that would negate the need for admission. In response it was acknowledged that the Four Hour Admission Standard would not be achieved for this year overall, but that performance regularly exceeded this standard.

Clarification was sought on what effect the delays in moving toward delivery through Neighbourhood teams would have on the budget. In response it was stated that the current budget had built-in headroom for the double running of services, and further resources would be available through the iBCF. Current projections were that without corrective action the Pooled Budget would be £650k overspent at year end, but that action would be taken and this represented a small fraction of the total budget pool. It was further commented that the Transformation Fund resources used to support the implementation of the new models of care were released in tranches upon completion of particular actions, but the challenge was that the resources were often needed to achieve the actions to generate the savings needed to redistribute existing resources.

In relation to recruitment, it was commented that Stockport was looking to recruit from the same pool as other employers in Greater Manchester, and the uncertainties of ‘Brexit’ would add to the difficulties.

RESOLVED – (1) That the update be noted.

(2) That copies of Stockport Together consultation material be circulated to members.