Agenda item

The report sets out NHS Sussex’s plans relating to West Sussex residents, highlighting any specific challenges and risks and how these are being addressed.

34.1     The Committee considered a report by NHS Sussex (copy appended to the signed minutes).

34.2     Summary of responses to committee members’ questions and comments:

·           The Committee felt that the Government should be lobbied over the low rate of hospital beds in the county per 100,000 people

·           There were national pressures around delayed discharges and staff shortages

·           South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust was managing handover delays better than some other ambulance trusts

·           The NHS works as effectively as possible with partner organisations to make best use of resources

·           The Systems Operations Centre analyses data and helps coordination of services feeding into executive level meetings

·           There was concern over vaccination rates - Action: Claudia Griffith to look into why communications around vaccinations appear not to be working as well as during the pandemic

·           Across Sussex there are about 800 people medically fit to leave hospital a day – trends are improving at St Richard’s hospital, Chichester and Princess Royal Hospital (PRH), Haywards Heath

·           The NHS is working closely with social care to decrease delayed discharges

·           Of patients currently awaiting discharge across St Richards and Worthing 55 are waiting for domiciliary care packages, 106 are waiting for a community or rehabilitation bed, and 18 are waiting for residential care

·           To mitigate this, University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust (UHSFT) has increased capacity by 106 beds to support flow and is supporting care homes with early interventions to try to avoid admittance to hospital

·           Optimum bed occupancy is 88%, but we are typically running at close to 97%

·           Adult Social Care (ASC) also tries to avoid people being delayed in hospital by increasing assessment capacity.

·           The discharge funding received by ASC was welcome and slightly more than expected

·           A more sustainable/ambitious model of supporting discharges should be possible in the future

·           Voluntary sector organisations such as Age UK and the British Red Cross help with discharge, admission avoidance and signposting to appropriate services instead of A&E

·           All organisations must have safeguarding frameworks in place before they can be involved

·           Urgent Treatment Centres (UTCs) are a core part of NHS infrastructure and have to comply to national standards

·           There are UTCs collocated at Worthing Hospital, St Richard’s Hospital and PRH and a UTC in Crawley run by Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust supported by primary care and A&E staff when necessary

·           Work is going on with Surrey & Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust to increase the number of appropriate patients using the Crawley UTC service instead of A&E at East Surrey Hospital, Redhill

·           Medically Ready for Discharge wards help people to be mobile by providing Occupational Therapy and Physiotherapy assessments

·           Making efficiencies is challenging as hospitals are near full capacity and nearly back to pre-covid levels of activity, but it may be possible to utilise theatres better for planned care and Trusts are looking at how they can move more towards seven day working

·           New technology can also help with efficiencies by reducing amount of time staff spend on administrative functions and enabling people to be discharged earlier with at home monitoring.

·           Virtual wards have been trialled in some areas of the country for those that don’t need acute inpatient care. This worked well during the pandemic with equipment and advice given to patients so they could care for themselves at home, but is reliant on people having the necessary technology and robust clinical governance

·           Additional capacity has been brought online this winter to support patients in mental health crisis, including Haven’s in Worthing and Crawley and a new Mental Health Clinical decision unit in Worthing - Action: Claudia Griffith to provide information on the development of the Crawley Mental Health Haven

·           There is also significant investment in supporting mental health in crisis services and the ambulance service so that people get the right support as early as possible

·           The number of out of area placements for mental health patients has reduced to one

·           There needs to be sufficient capacity to support individuals in the community with a focus on children and young people's mental health

·           Significant work is taking place to ensure services will continue to be delivered safely in the event of any industrial action in the NHS in Sussex

34.3     Resolved – that: -

                     i.        The Committee has received an assurance on the capacity and capability to deliver winter planning, and the focus of the plan

                    ii.        The Committee to lobby government via West Sussex MPs for extra capacity in hospital beds and increases in workforce

                   iii.        The NHS to revisit vaccination messaging to ensure it is reaching the whole community

                  iv.        The Committee receives a future update on virtual wards