Issue - meetings

Joe Slater, Chair of the Joint Clinical Commissioning Group Specialist Dementia Committee and Debbie Nixon, Chief Operating Officer, Blackburn with Darwen Clinical Commissioning Group (as lead CCG for mental health commissioning, acting on behalf of all CCGs in Lancashire) attended the meeting to provide members with an update on the current position regarding the outcome of the dementia care services consultation which took place in 2013. A number of appendices were attached to the report:

• Appendix A – Recommendations of the NHS Lancashire Cluster Board following the analysis of the consultation responses.
• Appendix B – Option Appraisal Report of the Joint CCG Specialist Dementia Committee.
• Appendix C – Press release from Blackburn with Darwen CCG stating the recommendations of the Lancashire CCG Network.

Dr John Knapp, Consultant Psychiatrist and Dr Amanda Thornton, Clinical Director for Adult Community Network also attended the meeting to provide information from a clinical perspective.

A PowerPoint was used to give some background to the current position. It included a brief summary of the reasons behind the proposed changes to dementia care services, the consultation options, action following the consultation and the final outcome, which was to proceed with the construction of 'The Harbour' – a 30 bed dementia inpatient unit at Blackpool. The presentation also set out details of the number of patients expected to receive care at each of five different layers. This was intended to illustrate the relatively small proportion of dementia sufferers expected to be admitted to The Harbour:

·  specialist dementia unit (The Harbour) – 159

·  specialist community services – 6,700

·  nursing and care homes – 6,824

·  general hospital, - 9,493

·  living in the community – 18,679

The presentation also listed possible solutions to concerns raised about travel difficulties to the single site at Blackpool (see below). A copy of the presentation is appended to these minutes.

Members raised a number of comments and questions and the main points arising from the discussion are summarised below:

·  Concern was expressed about the methodology used to determine the preferred site and in particular that there was no weighting applied to the different categories of voters; it was suggested that if votes from 'advisory groups' had been weighted the scores under the heading 'access' would have been considerably lower.

·  In response members were assured that the methodology used had mirrored that used previously by the Technical Appraisal Group and that the Joint Clinical Commissioning Group had agreed by consensus that The Harbour be progressed as the site for specialist inpatient dementia services. There had been no sense that anyone involved with the decision had been uncomfortable with the outcome.

·  The Committee was reminded that expectations were that fewer than 1% of dementia sufferers would require the type of specialist inpatient care that was to be provided at The Harbour and that people generally accepted there was a need to travel to receive such specialist care. The majority of people would receive care locally through a developing raft of community services.

·  Debbie Nixon agreed to provide  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6