Friday 24th April 12 noon

Meeting with Mental Health Trust Chief Executive

Cllr Gordon-Bullock and myself as chair & vice-chair of the Health & Well Being Scrutiny Committee met with Judy Wilson the new Chief Executive of the South West London & St Georges Mental Health NHS Trust and Mark Clenaghan the Service Director for Sutton & Merton.

 This meeting served two purposes: to meet the new chief executive on an informal basis and to discuss the Trust’s Annual Health Check declaration.

Ms Wilson informed us that they were going to declare non compliance on the areas around infection control. We were advised that although hospital acquired infection rates at the trust were very low, there were not sufficiently robust governance procedures in place to be able to declare compliance. The measures being put in place to address these issues were explained to us and Stuart & I felt that there was no need for our committee to take this any further than requesting an update on progress later in the year.

 Ms Wilson & Mr Clenaghan highlighted the implications of the National Dementia Strategy and it was felt that this might be a good area for future scrutiny as it impacted on social services too.

 We discussed the relationship between the Health Scrutiny Committee and the Mental Health Trust and it was refreshing to hear Ms Wilson’s aim to be fully co-operative with the committee and that she was open to working with us to develop a good relationship; seeing the scrutiny committee as a ‘critical friend’. As the committee is currently focussing on mental health I am hopeful that we can build on this new relationship to get the best out of the service.

Friday 24th April 10am

Meeting with Sutton LINks Representatives

Cllr Gordon-Bullock and myself as chair & vice-chair of the Health & Well Being Scrutiny Committee met with Susanna Bennett and Roy Prytherch representing Sutton LINks – the Local Involvement Network bringing together local people, organisations and groups to help improve local health and care services.

The purpose of the meeting was for Susanna & Roy to update us on the LINks workplan and priorities so that we could see how their work and the work of the Health & Well Being Scrutiny Committee might best complement each other.

We were pleased to see that LINks had decided to have Mental Health as one of its five priority areas as our committee had also identified this area as one in need of closer scrutiny and have dedicated our next Health & Well Being Committee meeting on 7^th May entirely to this subject. We agreed that this was a large area where joint working between LINks & our committee would be most useful. LINKs members would be attending the May information-gathering meeting so we agreed to meet shortly after this to decide how best to progress having hopefully received a steer from committee.

Thursday 23rd April 7.30pm

Nick Clegg’s Sutton Town Hall Meeting

Nick Clegg the Liberal Democrat Party Leader has been touring the country making himself available to members of the public through local town hall meetings. Today he came to Sutton and I went along to see how it went. The room was packed, some people I recognised as Liberal Democrat supporters but there were many I didn’t.

 Nick opened with his rationale for the meeting: that politicians are too distant from the people that elect them and he wanted to make himself more accessible to the electorate. He then took questions from anyone who had turned up. The subjects ranged from questions about Liberal Democrat policy on Europe & the voting system, to requests for help from a representative of the Tamil community. The mother of the man who was attacked in Greece also spoke up to make a request for help improving support for overseas victims, and she thanked local MP Tom Brake who was in the audience, for his assistance with their case.

 Nick answered the questions openly and honestly and stated that he fully expected some people there to not like what he said. He spoke about how the Liberal Democrats were coming to the fore with distinct ideas which set them apart from Labour and the Conservatives. When asked about being overshadowed by Vince Cable he said that he was not a Prima Donna needing to be the centre of attention all the time and as Finance Spokesperson it was right and proper that Vince should take the lead on matters relating to the recession.

The meeting was congenial and a lot of questions were able to be asked. I thought that the best question of the night was the last, asked by a young man, “How can politics be made more relevant to younger people?” Nick had no easy answer to that one, just that it was an issue all parties are grappling with.

  For more information on Liberal Democrat policies see the Lib Dem website.

 Incidentally this meeting was covered by a journalist from Total Politics magazine and appears in the latest edition.

Wednesday 22nd April All Day

Carers Poverty Protest

The Sutton Carers Centre had laid on a coach to take a group of Carers and supporters into London to join the Carers Poverty Protest March on Budget Day. Cllr. Ruth Dombey & I both attended to give our support for the campaign and to represent those carers unable to attend because of their caring roles.

In Trafalgar Square we met up with groups of other carers who had travelled from as far away as Leicester, Doncaster and Wales to protest at the paltry allowance full time carers receive in return for saving the NHS & Social Services millions. After a few speeches we marched on Downing Street.

 A contingent went in to present a petition to the PM whilst the Sutton Group met with local MPs Tom Brake & Paul Burstow, who pledged their support for the campaign.

 The sun shone on us all day and made it a very pleasant protest.

For more information on the protest see my previous posting.

Thursday 16th April 7.30pm

Merton, Sutton & Surrey Joint Health Scrutiny Committee

The main items on tonight’s agenda were updates on the Women & Children’s review; the Better Healthcare Closer to Home programme and the Epsom & St Helier Management Review.

The Women & Children’s review was looking at the provision of maternity and paediatric services between Epsom & St Helier hospitals. The issues determining this review have been mentioned in some detail in previous postings. The committee was advised that discussions were taking place between St Helier & St Georges Hospitals regarding joint staff training; joint and rotational posts and shared learning & governance. Discussions were also looking at centralising acute paediatric care at St Georges Hospital.

 I asked for clarification about the paediatric care currently provided at the Queen Mary’s wing of St Helier. I was informed that paediatric trained surgeons only performed elective surgery: the on call surgeons & anaesthetists at St Helier were not trained specifically to operate on children.

 I also asked about capacity to take additional patients at St Georges including the facilities for the hospital to accommodate parents who wished to stay with their children. I was advised that there was capacity and facilities for parents, however it was expected that once emergency procedures had been performed and the patient stabilised then the child would be transferred to St Helier or their local hospital for recovery.

 There was discussion about how the decision on where and when to transfer patients to St Georges rather than St Helier would be made. This still required further work and discussion with the ambulance service.

 I gave my opinion that parents generally preferred to see their children receive specialised care and as was the case with the Great Ormond Street Hospital were usually prepared to travel to receive that specialised care. However what was important here was that the care received would be better, and that facilities for parents to stay with their child in hospital were of increased importance when that hospital was further away. It would also be necessary for it to be made very clear to the public precisely which services were being moved, and highlighting that general emergency paediatric facilities would still be available at St Helier.

 The Better Healthcare Closer to Home update advised that the outline business cases had been accepted but NHS London had requested the programme looked at ways of reducing the cost of the St Helier scheme by combining the Phase 1 and Local Care Centre developments into a single building. I requested more detail about how this would be effected and was advised that by combining the two buildings into one there would be infrastructure savings for example on heating and roofing.

 The current timetable for implementation of the various programme elements were given as Shotfield: 2 years from August; Merton 4 years and St Helier construction to begin around 2012 with estimated completion around 2016.

 Item seven on the agenda concerned the availability of Epsom & St Helier Board papers. A complaint had been made by a member of Links that the chair of the board was no longer willing to make the papers available to non board members in advance of the meetings which it was felt reduced the ability of the Links members to perform their function and follow the proceedings at the meetings. The chair of the board John Davey was present and made his case that the meetings were not public meetings but meetings held in public. The committee did not feel that this was satisfactory reason to not make the papers public as local authority meetings operated under similar rules and made their papers available to the public at the same time that they were made available to committee members.

 The Epsom & St Helier Management Review was considering splitting the two hospital trusts into separate managing bodies. The committee was advised that the anticipated date for delivery of the project of March 2009 had not been met and the review had of necessity to go back to basics. It now looked like being completed towards the end of April.

 I asked how much had been spent on the review to date, how this compared to the budgeted spend and estimated further costs associated with the additional work required. I wanted this information as reassurance that costs were being managed and being kept within reasonable parameters.

Tuesday 7th April 6pm

Russell Court Residents Association Inaugural Meeting

Cllr Richard Bailey & I attended this first meeting to set up the Russell Court Residents Association at the request of Sgt. Peter LeShirley. He was keen for the ward councillors to be on hand to offer advice & help with any issues that might be relevant. Also at the meeting was Leon Graham the local manager for A2 Dominion housing association and his area manager.

 We were pleasantly surprised at the turnout in the end – much better than we had anticipated. Some good discussion followed with a number of issues being raised and some solutions proposed.

 One issue was around flytipping. At the suggestion of the residents it was agreed to return to a system of locking the doors to the bins and issuing each resident with keys. It would be the responsibility of each resident to look after the keys and pay for replacements should they be lost.

 It was also generally agreed that an on-site caretaker might help improve the appearance of the area and Leon agreed to investigate this. He advised that new cleaning contractors had been employed.

 Another issue of concern was sub-letting of garages and cars parked in front of the garages blocking access. There would be some investigation into those who were causing this problem.

Dog fouling was a big problem in the area. Richard was able to advise that extra street cleaning was done in Ross Road and the street cleaners will pick up dog mess whilst cleaning, but were reluctant to empty the bins specifically for dog mess. Richard had got notices put up in the area advising of the fines for not picking up after your dog but at a recent inspection it was found that many of the notices had already been picked off the lampposts. We were advised by Leon that residents needed express permission to have a cat or dog in the property and they were forbidden in flats.

 Despite a bit of tension at the end I got the general impression from residents I spoke to afterwards that the meeting was worthwhile and they would come along to the next one, and encourage their neighbours to come too.

The hanging baskets are here!

Hurrah, Wallington town centre has finally got its hanging baskets. Two to each lamppost no less. It has taken no small effort to make it happen but thanks to Local Committees getting their own budget to spend on enhancing the public realm we have been able to bring some cheer to Wallington high street. Hanging baskets were what the public and local businesses said they wanted to see and the committee was keen to oblige.

Thursday 26th March 2009 6pm

Jack Petchey’s Speak Out Challenge Sutton Regional Final

 

I had been invited to be a judge at this regional final of the Speak Out Challenge held at St Philomena’s School in Carshalton.

 

Sixteen young students from Sutton schools had qualified to take part in this regional final held in the presence of the Deputy Mayoress Anisha Callaghan.

 

The students had three minutes to speak on any topic they felt passionate about and the subjects ranged from prejudice, public speaking, democracy, to how to cheat in exams. I was very impressed by the quality of the presentations and deciding the three top places was extremely difficult.

 

Also impressive was the enthusiasm and support of the classmates of the students speaking. It was literally earsplitting and gave the whole event the excitement of an X-Factor final. Well done to SpeakersBank and the Jack Petchey Foundation for getting young people enthusiastic about public speaking.

 

 

Congratulations to the winners: Yinka Ogunbiyi from Wallington High School for Girls who won first place for her speech about ‘The beauty of lies’; Alexandra Reed from Nonsuch High School for Girls for ‘Being Busy’ in second place; and Callum Reid of Overton Grange School who came third with ‘The Lost Child’.

 

To see videos of the winning speeches or find out more out the Speak Out challenge click here.

Tuesday 24th March 11.30am

Carers Partnership Board

This board is made up of carers and ex-carers; Sutton local authority representatives from the Carers Development Unit; representatives from local NHS trusts; and voluntary sector representatives including our main partners in this area, the Sutton Carers Centre. This means that the board covers the spectrum of service providers, commissioners and users. I chair the board in my relatively neutral capacity as councillor with special interest in carers’ issues.

 

I do find this a difficult meeting to manage largely because carers interests cover such a broad range of areas, from adult and children’s social services, to health provision, housing, benefits, mental health and across all manner of disabilities. When an item on the agenda is raised the discussion can broaden out considerably, or we can find ourselves going into great detail around a particular service.

 

It therefore proved to be quite a useful exercise for me to have to prepare a report on the goals & achievements of the Carers Partnership Board both as a basis for our Board’s representatives to take to the Sutton Adult Partnership Board, and also to use to steer our work over the next year. The report was generally accepted by the Board with the addition of ‘improving the uptake of benefits by carers’.

 

Another item on the agenda which may not have appeared of obvious relevance was the Site Development Policy consultation. Marilynne Burbage had brought this to our attention because of the preferred options suggested for the Sutton Hospital site. Marilynne had noticed that the Sutton & Merton PCT had only indicated a need to keep 0.5 hectares for health provision. As this was a lot less than the area currently covered by the mental health inpatients wards, and with concerns that the Mental Health Trust had plans to move inpatient facilities away from this site there was concern that should the preferred option be accepted as it is it would preclude any extensive health provision development on this site. If there were no plans to provide inpatient beds in the borough of Sutton then this would impact on carers’ access to relatives who were patients on mental health wards. The board agreed to submit a response to the consultation highlighting this matter, and also in respect of similar concerns about health provision on the Carshalton War Memorial site.

 

Members of the board agreed to review the bereavement information to go onto the Sutton Council website to ensure that it covered all the areas relevant for carers and feedback their comments.

 

As usual the meeting overran and we didn’t get around to addressing all the items on the agenda.

Friday 20th March 11am

Mental Health Trust Meeting with Carers & Users

I attended this series of meetings with mental health service users and their carers as an interested observer. Ken Fish the chair of the Carers Action Group had invited me along. Mark Clenaghan the service director for Sutton & Merton ran the meeting and took questions. Mark gave an update on current service matters and there was a brief presentation on safeguarding vulnerable adults from social care team members.