Agenda item

The meeting received a question received from Councillor Malcolm Clements, as follows:-

In the light of a series of adverse CQC Inspection reports, which question whether the Barnsley Health Care Federation is a fit and proper organisation to provide healthcare to Barnsley residents, will the Board request reports on the effectiveness of the Federation in delivering against Health and Wellbeing Strategy priorities?

Lesley Smith, Barnsley CCG Chief Officer, responded to the question, noting that the Inspection took place in February 2018 as part a CQC pilot on the inspection regime for GP federations.  A subsequent re-inspection in November 2018 had resulted in extremely positive feedback on progress that had been made, with the provider immediately removed from special measures.  Although the draft report had yet to be received, no initial concerns were fed back to the CCG, with the Federation commended for the rapid work undertaken to address the findings in the previous Inspection. 

The response also noted that the Health and Wellbeing Board did not have a role in considering whether a service provider was a fit and proper organisation, and did not previously consider CQC reports or requested reports on the effectiveness of care providers.  The meeting noted the role that statutory partners had in doing this, as part of a comprehensive regime of regulation and scrutiny of performance.  If the Health and Wellbeing Board was to take a view on the quality of provision, this needed to be done in a fair and consistent way, although the meeting noted that there may be merit in Board members discussing where the consideration of quality sits and the responsibility of system leaders to drive this through on a whole system approach as part of the Board’s development session.

RESOLVED:-

(i)         that the response to the question be noted, in particular:-

·         the significant improvements made by the Federation against all of the issues raised by the CQC;

·         that Barnsley Health Care Federation has been removed from special measures and is awaiting a follow-up CQC report;

·         the specific contributions, as highlighted in the response, that the Federation has made to the delivery of the Health and Wellbeing Strategy; and

(ii)       that the detailed response given be incorporated in the meeting papers and circulated to Board members.