Agenda item

NHSE QUARTERLY UPDATE REPORT

Minutes:

Nicola Allen, NHS England, attended the meeting and gave an update to Wirral Health and Wellbeing Board regarding the activities and responsibilities of NHS England. The report outlined the national and regional context together with specific updates on priorities that the Local NHS England Teams were responsible for progressing.

 

The report provided details of the new GP contract that had been agreed. Along with the Government, and the British Medical Association’s General Practitioners Committee, NHS England had agreed a new general practice contract for 2017/18.

 

The new agreement included an increased focus on some of the most vulnerable, with tailored annual reviews offered to frail pensioners, and an increase in the number of health checks for people with learning disabilities. The new contract also included provisions to encourage practices to be more accessible to patients.

 

The report also provided members with information on the NHS GP Induction and Refresher (I&R) Scheme that provided a safe, supported and direct route for qualified GPs to join or return to NHS general practice.  This was designed for GPs who had previously been on the GMC Register and NHS England’s Medical Performers List (MPL) and would like to return to general practice after a career break, raising a family or time spent working abroad.  The Portfolio Route gave the option for doctors, who had worked in NHS general practice in the previous five years, and had been working abroad in an equivalent primary care setting to apply from overseas. The scheme also supported the safe introduction of overseas GPs who had qualified outside the UK and had no previous NHS experience. The scheme included a range of assessments including placements and simulated surgeries to support appropriately skilled GPs into NHS general practice.

 

The Board was also informed that NHS England had launched a public consultation on how it would put in place new standards for hospitals providing congenital heart disease services in England. The consultation, which was running for 16 weeks from 9 February to 5 June 2017, aimed to gather as many views as possible from patients, families and clinical experts and would include face to face meetings around the country, webinars and an online survey. This followed the publication in 2015 of a new set of quality standards for all hospitals providing congenital heart disease. NHS England was currently seeking views and input on how the standards could be put into practice. All of the documents relating to the consultation could be found at: www.engage.england.nhs.uk .

 

Ms Allen updated the Board with the changes to NHS local leadership and noted that to ensure continued progress was made on the delivery and implementation of the Five Year Forward View Richard Barker (North Regional Director) had appointed Clare Duggan as Regional Director of Transformation. Clare was currently Director of Commissioning Operations for Cheshire and Merseyside.  Clare would be working closely with Regional Management Team colleagues and other stakeholders to make sure that continued progress was made in a range of areas and health systems to deliver Sustainability and Transformation Plans across the North. To enable this change Graham Urwin had agreed to take on Director of Commissioning Operations (DCO) with responsibilities for Cheshire and Merseyside.  Members were informed that Cheshire and Merseyside and Lancashire would remain as two separate teams working with their respective local health & social care economy partners to maintain the important place based focus to delivery.

 

In relation to CCG Improvement and Assessment Framework (IAF) Nicola Allen reported that NHS England had introduced a new Improvement and Assessment Framework for CCGs (CCG IAF) for 2016/17 onwards. In the Government’s Mandate to NHS England, this new framework took an enhanced and more central place in the overall arrangements for public accountability of the NHS. There were four domains: Better Health, Better Care, Sustainability, Leadership and six clinical priorities (reported at the November HWBB).

 

The report also provided details of The Quality Premium which was intended to reward clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) for improvements in the quality of the services that they commission and for associated improvements in health outcomes and reducing inequalities.

There were five national measures

  Early Cancer Diagnosis

  GP Access and Experience

  Continuing Healthcare

  Mental Health

  Bloodstream Infections

 

With reference to Mental Health the report outlined that in support of the mental health Five Year Forward View priorities, NHS England had directed significant additional resources to Cheshire and Merseyside focussing on waiting list reduction and supporting transformation of mental health care. Alongside this Wirral CCG had received circa £160,000 to support Children and Young people waiting list reduction initiative and transformation.

 

Resolved – That;

 

1.  Nicola Allen be thanked for the report

2.  the report be noted.

Supporting documents: