Agenda item

To note that an additional meeting of the Committee will be held on 20 February 2019.

The meeting to include consideration of Motion 825 - Protecting Gloucestershire Hospitals’ Walk in Services, considered at the Gloucestershire County Council meeting on 28 November 2018. (Motion attached).

At the Health and Care Scrutiny Committee on 13 November 2018, members agreed to holding an additional meeting to discuss the proposal around the General Surgery Reconfiguration Pilot. At the meeting, members had requested more detail on the pilot, including the benefits anticipated for both staff and patients, information on the implementation planning timeline, including decision points, and the frequency of updates to the committee going forward. Members had been informed that the committee formed the role of critical friend and could express views and concerns on the issue but did not have the power to make recommendations or seek action from the Secretary of State as the this was a reconfiguration pilot.

It was announced that an additional meeting would be held at Shire Hall on 20 February 2019. Arranged at the request of the committee, the meeting would be arranged to provide members with an opportunity to gain a better understanding of the proposal to ‘pilot the reconfiguration of General Surgery Services across Gloucestershire Royal Hospital and Cheltenham General Hospital’.

Members were requested to submit their views and any concerns on the proposals before the end of the week. The responses to be incorporated into a draft letter that would be used to form the structure of the discussion at the meeting on 20 February 2019. Subject to approval by the committee, the letter to be sent to the Gloucestershire Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and GCCG Boards for pre-consideration. 

It was agreed the additional meeting on 20 February 2019 would include a second item - Motion 825 ‘Protecting Gloucestershire Hospitals’ Walk in Services’. Motion 825 was debated at the Gloucestershire Full Council meeting on 28 November 2018, where it had been agreed to refer the outcomes of the discussion, (including the resolution below), to this committee for further discussion.

Motion 825 to Full Council – 28 November 2019

Council noted:

      i.        The value communities place upon the Accident and Emergency units, in both Gloucester and Cheltenham

    ii.        The enormous and varied contributions made by the seven minor injury units spread across Gloucestershire

   iii.        The great value communities across Gloucestershire place upon having hospital facilities close by.

The Council further noted that all Walk in Centres, Urgent Care Centres, and Minor Injury Units will be rebranded as Urgent Treatment Centres by the end of 2019, and

RESOLVED to write to the Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group to appeal in the strongest possible terms, that none of the services currently on offer to walk-in patients at any of the nine hospitals be removed, and that Cheltenham General Hospital to not be further downgraded to an Urgent Treatment Centre from an Accident and Emergency department.

Full details of the minutes can be viewed at the following link:

http://glostext.gloucestershire.gov.uk/documents/g8885/Printed%20minutes%20Wednesday%2028-Nov-2018%2010.00%20County%20Council.pdf?T=1

Clarity on the context of the motion was questioned by the Chief Executive of the Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. It was explained that the motion would be considered in the context as that referred to the full council meeting on 28 November 2018, but that clarification on the detail of the motion would need to be sought at the additional meeting to be held on 20 February 2019.