Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Keith Mallinson.

Councillor Patricia Quigley, Councillor Ann Rosenberg, Lucia Boddington, Victoria Brignell joined the meeting online.

If a Councillor has a disclosable pecuniary interest in a particular item, whether or not it is entered in the Authority’s register of interests, or any other significant interest which they consider should be declared in the public interest, they should declare the existence and, unless it is a sensitive interest as defined in the Member Code of Conduct, the nature of the interest at the commencement of the consideration of that item or as soon as it becomes apparent.

At meetings where members of the public are allowed to be in attendance and speak, any Councillor with a disclosable pecuniary interest or other significant interest may also make representations, give evidence or answer questions about the matter. The Councillor must then withdraw immediately from the meeting before the matter is discussed and any vote taken.

Where Members of the public are not allowed to be in attendance and speak, then the Councillor with a disclosable pecuniary interest should withdraw from the meeting whilst the matter is under consideration. Councillors who have declared other significant interests should also withdraw from the meeting if they consider their continued participation in the matter would not be reasonable in the circumstances and may give rise to a perception of a conflict of interest.

Councillors are not obliged to withdraw from the meeting where a dispensation to that effect has been obtained from the Standards Committee.

There were no declarations of interest.

To approve the minutes of the previous meeting as an accurate record and note any outstanding actions.

The minutes of the meeting held on 22 March 2023 were agreed as an accurate record.

This report from West London NHS Trust provides the following information for the Committee to consider:

·      A summary of West London NHS Trust’s enhanced engagement process on Ealing adult acute mental health beds.

·      Feedback received during the enhanced engagement process and the full feedback report (Appendix 1).

·      The Trust’s emerging response in evaluating the feedback from all of the engagement activities to date. The Trust has determined that there are three realistic options, upon which a Public Meeting of the West London NHS Trust Board will be invited to make a recommendation.

The learning from the enhanced engagement process has been shared with West London NHS Trust Board in a private session, further opportunities for scrutiny of the engagement activities and emerging response are proposed in all Boroughs before the Trust Board makes its decision at a future Public Meeting. The paper presented here in the Trust’s preferred format may be amended in light of further feedback received but will largely form the final decision-making paper.

Dr Christopher Hilton (Chief Operating Officer - Local and Specialist Services at West London NHS Trust), Helen Mangan (West London NHS Trust), and Catherine Murray (West London NHS Trust) presented the report which provided:

• A summary of West London NHS Trust’s enhanced engagement process on Ealing adult acute mental health beds.
• Feedback received during the enhanced engagement process.
• The Trust’s emerging response in evaluating the feedback from all of the engagement activities to date.

Dr Hilton said the Trust had determined there were three options upon which a public meeting of the West London NHS Trust Board would be invited to make a recommendation. Those options were:

• Reverse the temporary provision, including reopening two wards and closing provision that had been funded with the reinvested revenue.
• Continue with the temporary provision, further delaying any final decision.
• Make permanent the current arrangements and put in mitigations to address concerns. This was the Trust’s preferred option.

Councillor Amanda Lloyd-Harris asked for the details about the investments mentioned in the report to be circulated to the Committee.

ACTION: Dr Hilton

Councillor Lloyd-Harris asked for answers in writing to the PAC’s questions from the previous meeting.

ACTION: Dr Hilton

Councillor Lloyd-Harris asked if the consultation responses had been weighted based on whether respondents had experience of the services in question or not. Catherine said the feedback hadn’t been weighted.

Councillor Genevieve Nwaogbe asked what the impact of opening the beds back up would be. Dr Hilton said the biggest impact would be on staffing capacity. They would have to move staff from community services back into the bedded units.

Councillor Nwaogbe asked if it was possible to hire dedicated staff rather than closing beds. Dr Hilton said they made the change because it wasn’t possible to provide safe care in the old facilities, but they wanted to ensure they were reinvesting the money saved into crisis pathways.

Jim Grealy commented that there should be a strategy across the whole of North West London looking at need, financing, and resourcing. He noted that members had been told no closures would proceed until a strategy had gone out to all stakeholders for consultation, but this closure and other similar closures in neighbouring boroughs were moving forward.

He noted that, according to the report, only 10 percent of people agreed with the proposals but they seemed to be going ahead regardless.

The Chair agreed and said it was concerning to see proposals seemingly made in isolation, without a clear strategy looking at the bigger picture.

Councillor Ben Coleman (Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Health and Social Care) commented that the ICB had said there wouldn’t be any bed closures until a mental health strategy covering all eight North West London boroughs was in place. Dr Hilton said he was not a part of that meeting, but he said the Trust recognised the feedback about needing a strategy and they were contributing to that now.

Councillor Coleman asked if the commitment not to close beds without a  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

The Committee is asked to consider items for inclusion in its work programme.

The Chair noted that a draft work programme would be circulated to members.

ACTION: David Abbott

To note the following dates of future meetings:

·       19 Jul 2023

·       15 Nov 2023

·       31 Jan 2024

·       27 Mar 2024

The following dates of future meetings were noted:

• 19 July 2023
• 15 November 2023
• 31 January 2024
• 27 March 2024

The Chair, Councillor Ben Coleman, Councillor Amanda Lloyd-Harris, Councillor Patricia Quigley, and Dr Christopher Hilton all made comments thanking Lisa Redfern for her support and the huge contribution she had made over the years as Strategic Director of Social Care. The Committee wished her well on her retirement.