To receive a presentation on access to Primary Care Services.

The Chair confirmed that Mr Andy Rix from the Lincolnshire CCG had been unable to attend the meeting to answer concerns about Lakeside Healthcare in Stamford, which was one of the main practices for many of the residents living in the east of the county. However, he had offered to attend a meeting on another date. 

Cllr Harvey welcomed Rachna Vyas, Executive Director of Integration and Transformation for the LLR CCGs to the meeting.  The Committee received a presentation from Rachna Vyas on actions taken to improve access to Primary Care Services in Rutland and at Oakham Medical Practice.

The Chair thanked Rachna Vyas, Laura Norton and Dr Hilary Fox for the presentation and opened the meeting for discussion and questions. During the discussion, the following points were noted:

·         Local health and care services were available but had to be better advertised to Rutland residents.

·         Cllr Cross stated that complaints had been received from the public regarding GP services within Rutland and enquired about the training of GP receptionists.  Rachna Vyas confirmed that all GP receptionists were trained to identify treatments that required urgent and/or immediate treatment as well as those minor health ailments that could be signposted to other services.  Training was also given on safeguarding and care navigation.  Dr Fox confirmed that GP receptionists did not clinically triage patients but did allocate patients to the most suitable clinician which was not always the GP.  Members were also informed that GP receptionists had received verbal, racist and physical abuse from patients.  The Chair requested that Cllr Cross send details of the complaints from Rutland residents to Dr Hilary Fox for investigation.

·         Cllr Walters confirmed that Oakham Medical Practice was aware of the problems within the practice and that the Practice did have an improvement plan.  He confirmed that a recent presentation from the Practice had gone into greater detail and addressed the issues discussed.

·         Cllr Ainsley asked if the situation would improve and if so, in what time scale.  Rachna Vyas confirmed she expected incremental improvements and would discuss with Dr Pearson and Dr Fox the matter of patient satisfaction surveys at regular monthly intervals.

·         Dr Underwood reported that improvements had been made to Oakham Medical Practice but that patients were unaware of the improvements made so better communication was required.

·         Cllr Waller requested that information provided in the future be separated so that Rutland data could be analysed independently from that of Leicester and Leicestershire’s information.

·         Cllr Waller questioned how the integration of services would be funded, who identified what services would be sited locally and how the integration of services would be communicated to Rutland residents.   Rachna Vyas confirmed that there was a joint budget between RCC and the CCG called the Better Care Fund which funded the integrated care service.  Both organisations, along with the Primary Care Network, were united in their vision of care services to be provided within the county and work continued in integrating further services such as pharmacies, optometrists etc.  She confirmed that all communication would be written in plain English and with no NHS jargon or abbreviations. 

·         Cllr Walters confirmed that a member of the North West Anglia Trust would be a member of the Rutland Health and Wellbeing Board to ensure that the eastern part of the county would not be overlooked in the upcoming changes. 

·         Dr Underwood stated that Healthwatch Rutland had been engaged by RCC to do a public engagement exercise on place-based care.  A large amount of data had been collected including comments about the GP practices and the report would be produced presently.

·         Laura Norton reported that improvements were being made by Oakham Medical Practice as quickly as possible especially to the website.

RESOLVED:

a)    That Rachna Vyas DISTRIBUTED a copy of the presentation and improvement plan from Oakham Medical Practice to the Committee members.

b)    That the improvement plan for Lakeside Medical Centre by Lincolnshire CCG be DISTRIBUTED to the Committee members.

c)    That Healthwatch Rutland SHARED with the Committee the data/report from the public engagement exercise on place-based care.

d)    That Mr Andy Rix from the Lincolnshire CCG be INVITED TO ATTEND a future meeting of the Adults and Health Scrutiny Committee to answer concerns about Lakeside Healthcare in Stamford.