LINK TRANSITION GROUP

 

Minutes of the meeting held on

Wednesday, 15 August 2012 @ 2 pm

Conference Room 3, Ground Floor, Civic Offices

 

Present:

 

Honorary Alderman John	Attrill	Learning Disability Partnership Board
Terry	Carter	Chair
Jill	Newcombe	Individual member of the Group
Vanessa	Williams	Individual member of the Group

 

Observer:

 

Andy McDowell - LINk member observer

 

In attendance:

 

Noreen O'Leary - Group Support Officer

Lynda Povey     -  Portsmouth University (Research and Business Associate)

Zoe Gray           -  Learning Links  (Chief Executive Officer)

 

ITEM	SUBJECT	ACTION
1.	Chair's welcome and opening comments
	Terry welcomed everyone to the meeting. Apologies were received and accepted from Jock McLees. Samantha Graham (Chrysalis) was absent. Jane Muir was absent. Paul Dibben sent his apologies in retrospectively.
2.	Declarations of interest
	No new interests were declared.
3.	Portsmouth Healthwatch Partnership
	Terry welcomed Lynda Povey and Zoe Gray from Portsmouth Healthwatch Partnership to the meeting, and said that the Link Group was very interested to hear of their work.   Lynda distributed information sheets about Healthwatch Portsmouth to all present (also attached to these minutes) and informed as follows:   Healthwatch Portsmouth is at present a partnership between the City Council, Learning Links and the University of Portsmouth designed to develop the service ready to start in April 2013. Aim to act as the local consumer champion of Health and Social Care to carry on the work of the LINk post April 2013. Strong background of community engagement Worked with many community groups in Portsmouth, running research projects Research carried out is applicable to people in their real lives Represent the local community and be their voice at all levels Taking on board local evidence based investigations, provide advisory services, independent Single point of contact and make it as simple as possible Must be independent from health services so as to enable impartiality, as per the national agenda   Lynda also confirmed the following re the key focus of Portsmouth Transition Local Healthwatch partnership:   Started end April 2012, bi monthly meetings. Aim to increase awareness about and work to secure a representative membership of Healthwatch amongst local communities To test and evaluate effective approaches to representative community engagement To provide an initial evidence base and a community driven approach to evidence gathering that will usefully inform and provide a foundation for the work of Health Watch going forward Academic research provided by Portsmouth University must produce robust evidence PCC are looking at Governance and Membership, this will involve the Helpdesk Learning Links will work with existing health trainers and mentor networks to engage community members and support new community research projects   Zoe informed that PCC will use the work of the Portsmouth Transition Local Healthwatch Partnership to decide on local specification.  Zoe and Lynda will have no part in the decision re specification.   With regard to research, Zoe confirmed that in order to get the anecdotal evidence, they needed a robust argument that cannot be argued with.  Portsmouth University is looking at this for a robust model.  Noted that they will act quickly.   The interim partnership will last until March 2013 and the PCC procurement process will commence in October 2012.  The partnership is currently working on a communications and engagement plan.   Terry commented that the NHS and Adult Social Care is a huge bureaucracy and he didn't think they could entirely control the agenda.  He thought this was a big issue, and together with local politicians and the press, it was difficult to get hold of objective truth. There was no guidance on the competencies and many of the issues around health were hugely complex. However, he applauded everything he had heard from Lynda and Zoe.   Andy said he thought it was very important that we were all on the same side.  Link and Healthwatch should be the scrutineers who ensure that the taxpayers, who are paying for the service, and the general public, who want a good and better service, should get what they are paying for.   Jill asked for more information about the role of the research student, ie, what level would they be at.  Zoe replied that it depended on the individual level of information that we requested at the time and they were trying to establish the best way of working, particularly with regard to independence from vested interests.  We have to establish principles and process.   Andy commented that the loudest voice is the voice that is heard.  Part of the problem is that unless you can involve people who are in full time work, and some organisations are using Skype to involve such people, we needed to be able to reach out to those other people, perhaps once a month.   Lynda agreed that we needed to involve all demographic groups across the city and that they were under no illusions that it is going to be easy, and so they would very much appreciate any help the Link Transition Group could give.   Vanessa informed that there were quite a substantial number of followers on social media and she had saved their names on a word document which she would forward to Noreen for onward transmission to Lynda/Zoe.   Terry thanked Lynda and Zoe for their interesting presentation, and all the information.   Lynda and Zoe left the meeting at 2:45 pm.	VW/ NO'L
4.	Minutes of previous meeting (25 July 2012)
	Amendment: 5.iii - DDACT should be DAT. With this amendment, the minutes were agreed as a true and correct record, and signed by the Chair.
5.	Matters arising not on the agenda
	5.i - Patient and Public Involvement Committee Jock is still waiting to hear details of this committee.   5.iii - Care Pathways for Detoxification and Rehab/Baytrees Terry confirmed that he had received a letter from James confirming that the Link Group is recognised by the Department of Health and as such we could use the Freedom of Information Act to request information.  Vanessa to email Barry Dickinson's address to Noreen.  Terry to write to Barry re the delivery of Detox and Rehab at Baytrees and ask him on what data all the decision have been made, and what methodology was employed.   6. - Transfer of Care Project Terry confirmed that he, Jock and Jill had met to discuss and they were moving forward slowly, although it is complex.  They thought they would be able to cut the proposed costs down.  See item 7 of this meeting for report.   9. - Newsletters All articles please send to Noreen.   10.  Ship Vascular Surgery Reference Group - Andy informed that Jock had written to them.  Members had been advised of the process for the Vascular Surgery Group and Andy said he was speaking to Penny Mordaunt, MP for Portsmouth North, about the fact that they had been prevented from attending future meetings.  No results would be given to anyone.  Terry informed that things had moved on since the conference in Winchester.  There had to be centres of excellence for vascular surgery and there is now clear evidence relating to outcomes that show that mortality rates are very much linked to this.    Andy said that it was the duty of people who attend these meetings not to listen sympathetically to the carefully contrived arguments of the Health Service representatives.  We have to go in as scrutineers and ask where has the data come from.  We should be businesslike, look at the data and the facts, and not be manipulated.  Patients are supposed to be at the heart of the NHS.  Many items that he and Jock had raised were left out of the minutes, and when he and Jock raised this, they were ignored.    Vanessa asked if any of us in this Group would be attending the meeting.  Terry replied this was up to the members themselves.  Vanessa commented that it would be interesting to see what would happen after Andy had met with Penny Mordaunt and whether or not Andy would be able to attend the Group.  It was thought he probably would not.   10.ii - Reports - present financial position of the group Terry informed that Louise Wilders had decided that Noreen's salary would be met from her budget, so we were now better off than we had thought we were. Terry also advised the historical position of the Link budget, as follows.  The first allocation of £84K was for the initial year only.  Last year our budget was £20,000.   We had spent £1,077.46 as we had been advised to be cautious.  The Government had said nothing at the time as to how they were going to fund the Healthwatch.    Last year - Total Link Budget              £20,000                   Expenditure                           1,077.46                     Balance at AGM Nov.       £18,922.54   October 2011 - April 2012                       1,255.91                     Balance                             £17,666.63   Our budget for this year is £12,500.   All other actions had been completed. eH	JMcL         VW TC                   ALL
6.	Public Meeting at Charles Dickens Centre - update
	Terry reported that Noreen had investigated the possibility of holding our proposed public meeting at the Charles Dickens Centre.  However, following advice and information from Rob Neale, Communities Co-ordinator, Neighbourhood Management, it had been agreed that the best way to proceed was to join a Heartlands Open Meeting.  Their meetings begin at 6 pm, but they have agreed that we can join their meeting on October 29th at Buckland Community Centre, with our slot commencing at 7:15 pm.   With regard to the way that the Heartlands group is funded, Vanessa expressed grave concern at our being associated in any way with an organisation that was funded by the sale of alcohol, but John assured her that Heartlands was not connected in this way.  The rent for the pub in Portsmouth is collected by a Trust, who have to give a percentage to the Heartlands Group for the good of the local community. All agreed that holding our meeting at the Buckland Community Centre was a good idea.   Agreed that Terry, Noreen and Vanessa would meet with Rob Neale as soon as possible after his return from holiday on 28 August to discuss leafleting, publicity, sound equipment, etc.  Agreed that refreshments provided by us would be tea/coffee/water/squash and biscuits.	TC/ VW/ NO'L
7.	Discharge/Transfer of Care Project - report from working party
	Jill reported that this Project had been set up based on information from previous public meetings where people had said they were not happy about their discharge from QA.  The Project would comprise of Phase A and Phase B for both financial and methodology reasons.  Once questions have been decided there will be either:   1.  Focus Group, need to have a selection of people who you select to take part, then the results will be unbiased.   There would be heterogeneous sampling, ie, as many different people as you can in respect of age, gender, race etc.   2.  Much more stringent, computerised random  sampling, but to do that you have to have a full list of Portsmouth population, the most complete list  being the  electoral register, and a computer randomly selects the respondents.   Statistically if you ask 30 people in any population, you will get the same range of opinion as if you asked the whole population - a representative range.   Phase A - investigates the range of opinions.  An investigative look at what is being said out in the public arena.   B - Questionnaire to quantify this, to prove the extent of problems.   Jill gave a very comprehensive explanation of the various types of research that could be undertaken, and the following questions were asked.   Vanessa asked whether the heterogeneous sampling was not as strong as the computerised random sampling.  Jill replied that it was, but that random sampling is the best.   John asked how the focus groups would be selected.   Jill replied from method A, we could look at using Victor's list of groups, finding an individual who would represent various groups.  John pointed out that people with learning disabilities always get left out and yet they comprise 2% of the population.  Jill said we needed to make sure there is a sound demographic of people aged over 65.  Terry commented that if at the end of Phase A, it might be that the 20 people who have told us about difficult times are only 20, then that wouldn't be a big problem.   Andy asked if we could get some records from QA and ask those people.  Terry said that trying to get anything out of QA was very difficult.  Co-operation from QA was possible, but they would not be able to give us names and addresses.   Agreed to approach QA and to budget £250 for Phase A.   Phase B to be decided.   Jill is leading the Working Party, with Jock and Terry.  Terry commented that we were very lucky to have Jill's help with this project as she had extensive knowledge of how research projects were undertaken.
8	Website/Blog/Facebook
	8.i - Website Vanessa confirmed this has now gone. 8.ii - Blog Terry has still to post his most recent meetings on the Blog.   8.iii - Facebook Jill informed that Facebook have recently announced that all Facebooks should be for personal use only.  Agreed we would do away with Facebook. Vanessa suggested opening a Twitter page.	VW
9.	Reports
	Nothing to report.
10.	Completion of the review of the Development and Investigations Committee
	Jill's research paper based on the Knowsley's scheme for prioritisation was distributed to all those present.  Terry said that he hoped that we will accept it, because each Project in the scheme is assessed against a number of different criteria and may score high on one criteria and low on another.
11. 12.	Drop in sessions, e.g. in Community Centres Mystery Shopper - NHS Solent
	Agreed these items will be on the next agenda.
	Next meeting - Wednesday 19 September 2012 @ 2pm, Room 3, Ground Floor, Civic Offices.

 

There being no further business, the meeting closed at 4:30 pm

 

 

 

 

 

 

Signed ……………………..

 

Date    ………………………