Agenda and minutes

Venue: The Wakes, Limes Walk, Oakengates, TF2 6EP

Contact: Deborah Moseley  01952 383215

Items
No. Item

HAC-1

Declarations of Interest

Minutes:

None.

HAC-2

Minutes of the Previous Meeting pdf icon PDF 557 KB

Minutes:

RESOLVED – that the minutes of the meeting of the Health & Adult Care Scrutiny Committee held on 29th February 2019 be confirmed and signed by the Chairman, with the above amendment.

HAC-3

TELDOC - Proposed Site Reconfiguration pdf icon PDF 225 KB

Minutes:

Nakash Lewis, Head of Business and Operations at TELDOC, began the meeting by outlining the reasoning for the proposals for TELDOC’s reconfiguration;

  • Restrictions of Lawley practice due to infrastructure;
    - no space to expand call centre capabilities

  • Aqueduct historically used as call centre for most sites, however it had reached maximum capacity and therefore unable to accommodate Lawley calls. Consequently, longer waiting times.

  • Patient feedback and complaints around front of house service, particularly access to call handlers to gain appointments.

  • Therefore site reconfiguration needed, which moves away from traditional model.

  • This is the need for a designated Care Navigation Hub
    - centralised hub handling all calls for TELDOC in a specially built administrative building, with the necessary infrastructure.


This was followed by Dr Rashpal Bhachu, Vice-Chair of TELDOC and Dr Kwok Yin Ian Chan, Chairman of TELDOC summarising the benefits to the patients;

  • TELDOC continued to remain open is 7 days a week, 365 days a year with appointments available on Saturdays and Sundays.

  • Dedicated home visiting team (3 members) operating from 8:30am to 6:30pm to assist those that were disabled, elderly and those with mobility issues.

  • Site access; patients at Lawley were able to go to other practices.

  • a new surgery was not possible therefore improving point of contact vital for improving overall quality of care.

  • Particularly busy periods such as after bank holidays, there was an influx of calls. In the proposed call centre, a further 50 staff could be put on to help with the over flow of calls.

  • Investing in this was cost neutral for the CCG, made more effective use of resources and did not ignore the integrated care economy policy that the council had already implemented.


The Chair asked the Committee to reflect on the collapse of the Sutton Hill Practice and the importance of sustaining local primary healthcare when discussing the proposals.

Members of the committee were invited to ask questions, and received responses as follows.

 

Why close the Aqueduct surgery? Why don’t you change this to the call centre?

 

The Vice-Chair of TELDOC said that Aqueduct was unfit for this purpose and that the GP only visited two mornings a week. The alternative practice to be used was a short distance away.

 

The Committee noted that this distance would be difficult for some individuals to access.

 

The Vice-Chair of TELDOC responded by saying that individuals who could not access the alternative practices could make use of the home handling service, also adding that Aqueduct didn’t have disabled parking.

 

What was the capacity of the Madeley Site?

 

The Committee were informed that converting the administration rooms into clinical rooms at smaller sites as well as closing Aqueduct would generate twice the amount of appointments. Likewise, this would lead to no staff redundancies but more opportunity for further recruitment.

 

What was the location for the proposed call centre?

 

The Vice-Chair of TELDOC informed the committee that the call centre would be in Telford and ran by Telford based staff. It would be made up  ...  view the full minutes text for item HAC-3

HAC-4

Chair's Update

Minutes:

Members discussed future topics for the Scrutiny work programme;

1.         Palliative Care

2.         Retention for Dementia Care in hospitals

 

The chair asked members to email in their suggestions for the two year programme, with some dealt as one off items of business.