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Health and Adult Scrutiny Sub Committee
Monday, 6th July 2026 at 6:30pm

 

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Welcome everyone. This is two minutes warning to let you know that we will
We started meeting now.
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shortly by starting the public broadcast if you could please put any device
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that you press the speaker button and speak clearly into the microphone.
Welcome everyone to this first meeting of the Health and Adult Scootalooza Committee
for this year and welcome to those who are joining or watching online. My name is Councillor
Vulkashe Mhallal and I am the chair of this Scrutiny sub -committee. Before we consider
the order of business, there are a few housekeeping announcements to make. Firstly, I remind that
that the meeting is being broadcast for the Council's website for public viewing.
Those participating in the meeting will be included in the footage.
If there are any technical issues, I will decide how the meeting should continue after taking advice from the officer.
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Move to agenda number one.
Regression of Interest.
Now into apologies, are there any apologies or substitute?
Nasi Ma?
We haven't received any apologies.
Thank you.
We will now begin the meeting with a round of instructions,
starting with sub -committee members first.
Please confirm your name, words,
confirm you have any declaration of interest.
Could the official present also...
Sir, can we start from the left, perhaps?
Would you like to introduce yourself to the councillor?
Yeah, councillor Iqbal, can you start?
Thank you, chair.
This is councillor Iqbal Singh for Lainsbury Road.
Thank you.
I have no interest to declare. Thank you.
Good evening everybody. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Leo Kondra Desuza
and I represent Health Watch Tower Hamlet here as a co -op team member
for the Health and Adult Social Subquatory Committee.
I have no conflict of interest, nothing to declare. That's me.
Hi, good evening. My name is Mohammad Shafiq Islam.
I am a Councillor of Sanderson.
health at this time.
MY name is Amina Ali and I amoun oler.
I don't have any interests to clord to Thank y ou.
are present also, introduce yourself. Can you introduce yourself please? Can you hear
me? Councillor Waheed, can you introduce yourself please? Councillor Waheed, can you
Can you hear me?
Hi, Councillor.
Can you hear me?
I can hear you, yes.
The line is a bit bad.
I am Councillor Abdul Wahid.
I do not have any declarations of interest to make.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councillor Abdul Wahid.
Could the officers present also in the meeting of the meeting of the meeting of the meeting
I will now introduce yourself following my guest speaker, please.
Hello, my name is Bridget Cameron. I'm the Interim Director of Commissioning for Adult Social Care Health.
So, the Councillor Sabine Acta, I'm the lead member for health caring and inclusive communities
and I'm here with the team today.
What are the DPI's?
Hi, I'm Shamin Banerjee, I'm Director of Public Health.
Hello, I'm Shannel Arkut, I'm the Interim Director of Adult Social Care.
I'm Joe Fraser -Wise, I'm the neighbourhood development director for NHS North East London,
which is the integrated care board.
Thank you.
Nissima Begum, Democratic Services Officer.
Thank you, Nissima.
We have two other guests behind.
I think there are two other guests behind.
Can you introduce yourself, please?
Thank you.
Dean Jovana Para, Director of Mental Health and Learning Disability,
working for Eastlander Foundation Trust.
Thank you. Next one.
Dan Northam, General Secretary of Chief,
at the Royal London and Mile End Hospitals.
Thank you.
Daniel Kerr, Head of Scroone.
Julie Szymanski, Scrutiny Officer.
Thank you all.
The appointment of Vice Chair.
I will now seek any nomination for Vice Chair.
I will nominate Councillor Ipaldos.
Are there any seconders?
Yes, I'd like to second that.
Thank you. Are there any other nominations? No? Thank you. I can now confirm the appointment
of Councillor Iqbal Hussain as Vice Chair. Thank you.
agenda number three minutes of previous meeting.
As there have been changes to membership since the last meeting,
I can confirm that the former chair had agreed the minutes
of the last meeting as a true record.
Can we note that the minutes of the last meeting were agreed to record?
Thank you. Action log.
There are no outstanding actions from the previous meeting.
An action log will be included in each agenda pack going forward to monitor the progress
of recommendation and action made by this subcommittee.
Can you read this item?
Thank you, Nastima.
The term of reference for this subcommittee is
the inner North East London Joint Health and
Auberbureum Scootinii Committee, INELJHOSCR,
included for noting.
Can we take the term of reference?
The committee are asked to note the terms of reference, quorum,
and membership and dates of the future meeting dates for this municipal year are set out in the report.
Members are asked to agree the health and scrutiny committee meetings will be held at 6 .30 in council chambers.
Thank you.
I set out the agenda item for the INLJHOSCS term of reference page 23.
allocate their member position to participate in progress.
I hold on position as the chair of this subcommittee
and we will request to seek an additional two nominations.
Are there any nominations for Bharat Reperiential on this INLJHOC?
Any nominations?
I would like to nominate Councillor Otterly Daisy Swinyard.
Thank you. Are there any seconders?
Sure.
Second. Seconder. Thank you.
Thank you. Are there any other nominations? No?
Thank you. I can now confirm the appointment of Councillor O 'Toole,
I believe it will be the Vice Chair that will be nominated for the nomination.
Is that agreed?
Seconder?
Is there a seconder?
Seconder?
Seconder?
Yes, I'd like to second that, thanks.
So, any other nomination?
Seconder?
I can now confirm the appointment of Councillor
Rick Palusan as the Barra Repenitive on the INLJHOSC.
Can you note in the minutes that Councillor Rick Palusan
has been nominated as the Barra Repenitive on the INLJHOSC,
subject to confirm by the Abarban Scootinie Committee and also Councillor Atalie D 'Alessio -Samuel.
There are two representatives. Thank you.
Committee Member 721 and Corporate Director of Adult Social Care Success,
and challenges for 2020 -27.
I would now like to welcome the cabinet member for health, caring,
and inclusive committees to interact the first presentation.
Councillor Akhtar, please outline the key points in the presentation
and the likely impact on the Trough Scootoony Work Programme.
If you hold keep to approximately seven minutes, please,
and we'll move to request from members.
You may start now.
Councillors.
Thank you very much, Che, and congratulations.
So I'm pleased to present this overview of the work of the health,
Wellbeing and Social Care Directorate.
So over the past year, we have delivered a number of important achievements for residents,
including strong smoking cessation outcomes that perform the national average,
the continued partnership work that we have done with the Council and the community
to kind of bring about the success storey for Free Swimming for Women and Girls,
the recognition of our Communities Keeping Well programmes,
which recently with the team we recently received an award,
the awards at the LGA Awards, which is a really proud moment for the Council
and I was really happy to be there and to receive the award with the team.
And also securing a good rating from the Care Quality Commission for Adult Social Care,
so we've had a really good outcome there,
which we worked really hard as a team to kind of bring that good rating.
And it was a really high kind of rate, so that was something that we can be proud of.
But obviously we need to do work to kind of achieve more and we want to get outstanding.
We have also continued to provide vital support to some of our most vulnerable residents
through our free home care and our safeguarding services and improvements
to community -based care and support.
And looking ahead, our focus will be developing a new health and wellbeing strategy and adult
social care plan, strengthening the neighbourhood working, improving services through recommissioning
and transformation programmes, and building on our recent successes to continue improvement
outcomes for residents.
So at the time what we're doing now is for example working with the team and the council
for example in our one stop shops, how can we kind of implement the health and social
aspect, which that's from the work that we're doing now, so we do a lot of the pilot work
now, so kind of making sure wherever we're going through the manifesto as well, to making
to ensure the health and the social aspect is put in place and given that accessibility.
So that will be part of our ongoing work and improvement journey.

7 a) Successes, and Priorities and Challenges for 2026/27: Cabinet Member for Healthy Caring and Inclusive Communities and Corporate Director for Health and Adult Social Care

So like I said, we are going through success storeys but also we know there are a lot of challenges
and financial pressures. We've got increased demand, demographic growth and changes across the NHS landscape.
So we remain committed to working with partners and delivering that high quality services and support for our communities.
I don't know if any of my officers want to come in now.
Yeah, Sheldon.
Thanks. Not much to add.
Just actually very recently we've had an update on the health data for Tahirah Hamlets.
and it's a sort of continuing narrative which relates to the impact of deprivation, housing,
employment and poverty on people's health in the borough and inequalities. And so if you kind of
follow along the life course, it's the impact of childhood poverty in the borough on maternity
outcomes and birth outcomes and childhood obesity, but also as you move through the
life course, real substantial burden of substance misuse in the borough and also in terms of
mental health, increasing mental health pressures since Covid, we also see within town Hamlet
people get long -term conditions earlier. So conditions like diabetes and heart disease
has got a greater burden in Tower Hamlets. Also I think one of the things that we've
noticed about Tower Hamlets is that there's a very sharp rise in adult social care pressures
driven particularly in the under 65s and particularly in the Bangladeshi community.
So that has an impact on the pressures on the council.
And also if I need to know, in older age we have a lower proportion of older people
but they tend to be significantly, they tend to have significantly poorer health.
and one of the key standout statistics about Tower Hamlets is that older people have the highest levels of income deprivation in the country
and that really impacts on the complexity of cases we see across the health and care system and in adult social care.
So that's just the ongoing backdrop which is not helped by cost of living, housing issues, etc.
So yeah, I'll just pass on to my colleagues.
So I was just going to say we're really happy to work with the health scrutiny committee,
so yourself, chair and the members, to kind of have that improvement, continuous improvement journey.
and through Health and Wellbeing Board,
also we want to have that kind of engagement,
continuously with the various partners
to kind of have that discussion
and we really want the core focus on health
and to tackle health inequalities.
Thank you for your work.
Thank you, Councillor, Akhtar and Avisa.
Thank you very much.
Do members have any questions?
In the data that you just presented, is that over the period that the data is representing,
was there any change in air quality or pollution and did you see the knock -on effect of that?
Actually on Friday we received a report at London level on the impact of looking at air
pollution across London and noticing significant improvements around that.
It talked about the improvements in air quality but not necessarily the correlation with health
because that's sometimes quite difficult to demonstrate.
So I don't have the town -houndlet specific data to hand,
but it is to note that some of the measures over the past few years
are being seen to have an impact on particulates and etc.
So there is an impact, so we are seeing an impact across London
and we would expect to see that it models a reduction in excess deaths
I'm happy to share that report if you've not seen it.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So in terms of the I think you were asking about the health and well -being strategy.
Over the past year the Council has developed, well not the Council working with partners,
has co -produced what we call the Our Time and its Vision 2035, which very much focuses
focuses on the issues that matter to residents.
And that is focused very much on how we work together,
how we work with residents, and it's also life course,
it's framed around life course, so giving every children best start,
health in adult life, but a particular focus on older people.
So that is an overarching... It's not just a health strategy,
it's a partnership strategy.
And that has been co -produced and there's been a lot of insight
around residents' perceptions around health.
So what we want to do is for the health and wellbeing strategy
to be the health element of that.
So we don't have a broader corporate partnership strategy
and a separate health and wellbeing strategy.
So we've had our first health and wellbeing board
of the new administration.
We had it a few weeks ago.
And that is one of the discussions that we want to have,
which is like, how do we take the Our Tower Hamlets
health vision and use all that insight to develop the health element of that.
So that's where that is.
And I think over the next, definitely between now and September,
we want to use that intelligence and think through what the action plan would be around that.
I think it will be around December that we would be looking to finalise the strategy,
which we would obviously want to bring back to the board for discussion.
It's also to make sure that we have a priority.
So it's also to get all the feedback, all the information, making what would be our priority,
so we can get all the action plans, like Srona said, in line with making what is priority
and how we can access and gather those information that is relevant into the care plan, into
the health strategy. And the whole year I think we're going to have multiple dates and
timings where we can come back and forth and we can have draughts and this is how we can
have a review as well so whatever we decide will be available for the committee itself
and in the health of the world being where people will have that chance to kind of give that scuttle, give that
review and kind of analysis on that. So we want to work with everyone along that journey.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much. So it's more like work in progress.
It will be a continuous path of progress.
Yes, as they say, the road to success is always under construction.
It is work in progress.
It needs to be iterative working with residents and also just to note
that Health Watch are on the Health and Wellbeing Board.
So they're very much part of those discussions.
But I do, I guess it's a question for the committee,
obviously a new committee, in terms of the extent to which
the committee cited on the Our Tower Hamlet vision, because I think that's very central to our strategic approach.
Thank you, your nice question. Thank you for your response, officer. Thank you very much.
If possible, it would be helpful if you could remain in the meeting
for the decision on the draught work programme.
Can you please note this information, provide and agree to consider it
when we discuss the draught Scoot -Oni work programme.
Moving on to the next agenda.
Health partners success, prioritise and challenging for 2026 -27.
We now move to the next part of this item to our health partners.
Can you come to the front chair please? Thank you.
We now move to the next part of this item to hear from our health partners.
I welcome representatives from NHS, North East London,
the
Isla London Foundation Trust.
We will take the presentation in the order in which they appear in the agenda.
If you could please speak for approximately seven minutes each, followed by a time of
questions and answers after each section. Please take the papers as read and highlight
key points that will likely impact the future work programme.
Firstly, we welcome Freya West, NHS North East London Neighbourhood Development Director for Inner London.
If you could please introduce your presentation, please.
Thank you, Chair. I'm really pleased to be here.
So there have been a lot of changes within NHS North East London and the Integrated Care
Board.
What you've got in terms of the paper is a presentation and a summary in particular focused
on primary care, but the North East London ICB has moved over the last year to become
a strategic commissioner, which is very much about focusing on delivery of the 10 -year
plan.
and in earlier this year there was the launch of the National Neighbourhoods Framework
which has also helped shape in particular what the Tower Hamlets part of the NHS North East London team will look like.
So there is still a place team with new people in it, including myself,
and we will be very much focused on working as part of the Tower Hamlets together
and the partners in terms of delivering the requirements
of the National Neighbourhood Framework.
So what you have in terms of the summary are some
of the achievements, as I've said, particularly
in primary care, some of the great work that's been done
in partnership with public health and PCNs,
which was nationally recognised with an award.
The challenges remain in terms of rapid population,
increasing complexity.
There's some particular issues around primary care, thinking about list sizes for practises,
which are adversely affecting town hamlets because there's quite a large cohort of patients
who don't have a confirmed GP practise but are actually using services.
And NHS England have been trying to communicate out to the population and there'll be some
further communication because that is impacting in terms of some of the things around access.
The priorities in particular for the coming year are around looking at same day access and making sure that we've got those contracts in place,
increasing the online access to GP practises and in particular patient use of the NHS app.
The NHS app does a lot more now than it used to and is becoming a really important tool for our residents
So it's really important that we support people in terms of access to that and also how to use it.
And as part of that, very much building our neighbourhoods and continuing the great work that's been happening in terms of neighbourhood working,
making sure that primary care is central to the development of neighbourhoods.
And there are some very specific asks within the National Neighbourhood Framework,
So I would recommend that the committee really think about understanding that framework
and coming back with some more detail about how we plan to meet the requirements that are listed there.
I will say on GP access that there is some kind of good news in terms of Tower Hamlets.
Access to appointments is above the null average as is things like phone answer rate.
and in the last GP survey there was a 60 % approval in terms of GPs in town hamlets being easy to contact.
So that's quite high in terms of particularly across north east London.
Welcome, happy to take any questions that anyone may have.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yes.
Thank you for the presentation.
How do you ensure
access to the GP, people with
disability, and there are some
people who are non -responsive
to any health professional,
they don't want to go to the GP
or any health professional,
how we will ensure that it comes under the care.
I think that's a really important question.
I'll be honest in that I don't think I'm necessarily the best person to answer that,
so I may need to go away and come back with some further response.
We do a lot of work and our primary care colleagues, if they were here,
would be talking about the work that they do in terms of access.
There's significant work in particular thinking around deaf population and how we ensure the
people who use British Sign Language can access GP surgeries.
There are obviously statutory regulations in terms of disability access.
I think the non -responsive issue is important and in terms of that's part of what the neighbourhood
programme is also about in terms of making sure that we're building services in communities,
embedded with communities, using partners in the voluntary sector to support in terms
of access and interventions that we want to give.
So it becomes a much more holistic and locally based offer that is for the residents.
But in terms of the very specifics, I would ask that I provide an answer following the meeting.
Thank you for your opportunity to recognise your award.
Do any other members have any questions?
Councillor Ojai, online.
You may ask your question, please.
Councillor?
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you, Chair.
Congratulations on your position.
Just a couple of things in terms of firstly, I want to congratulate the team for achieving
the care quality, good rating, fantastic achievement.
And I think, like the lead member said, we need to continue to work and to see how we
can build on this going forward.
Just a couple of things also in terms of mention about, as we know, Karham List is one of the
youngest boroughs in the country, which brings its own challenges to the borough.
As we wanted to know in terms of how are we keeping these records in terms of data keeping
data, how are we using those data and how is this data being shared with the different
sort of partners because then you have to work with the different partners and the test
doctors etc.
how are we doing that?
And also in terms of basically culturally sensitive
services within the bias,
you know, there's a lot of issues around drugs, et cetera,
things like that.
So how are we basically looking towards providing
a service that is culturally sensitive
when it comes to drugs, et cetera, and things like that.
And also,
so one more point.
which is the demands, again, how do we sort of like
tackle the demands and the challenges does that bring?
And finally benchmarking, how are we benchmarking
in terms of our services that we're providing
and what's on benchmarks and how are we benchmarking this
with other borrowers as well?
Thank you.
Thank you, Councillor Abdullahi, your nice question.
Can I just maybe reflect back what I think I heard.
Sorry, the sound was a little bit muffled,
but I think the Councillor is asking about benchmarking data that we use,
maybe across adult social care and health.
I think it was about the date, I was thinking it might be about data
around primary care, the data that we keep on residents who come in
and out of the borough, maybe it's linked to registrations as well.
So it's about the young population.
Yeah, so I think, but I mean, the Council might be able to,
I think one might be about registration and keeping on top of the population.
Sorry, sorry, sorry, I know, sorry, the connexion here is really bad,
and we probably didn't hear, yes, benchmarking also in terms of basically the culturally sensitive services that we're providing,
and also benchmarking how we're doing that and what are we doing towards that,
and also the chat and infancy that that brings in terms of providing services.
Yeah, so cultural sensitivity, benchmarking, I think those are the two key things.
Chanel, do you want to talk about the adult social care benchmarking?
We are in London, we are the fastest growing authority in terms of number of people accessing adult social care
and requesting services. We are projecting around 280 more people coming to adult social
care for ongoing long -term services, which compared to London is one of the highest.
In terms of provision of services, how we compare to the rest of London is that we are
third highest in terms of per person cost per care package. So not only we have high
number of packages, but our packages of care, because of the high need, are quite intensive,
and therefore the cost is the third highest in London.
I hope this answers. We've got loads more data if the counsellor is interested, I'm
and happy to forward them to him about how we compare
to London across all range of resident
and different needs services.
Yeah, that would be great, thank you.
Yes, and I think probably the easiest answer
is to provide that same level of data around the NHS.
So absolutely, we know about the pressures of demand
across town Hamlets and the whole of North East London,
particularly with the growing population.
We absolutely look at benchmarking data,
both from a NEL and a London footprint.
So yes, again, happy to pull that data
and provide it as one pack.
I think I'll just add one thing to that,
which is the issue in relation to cultural sensitivity
and the issue of health literacy in the borough.
So from the census, we know that a lower portion
of the population have English as a first language.
A lot of the work we do within communities
relates to how people might be struggling with navigating the system to get the healthcare that they need.
So we obviously do see the benchmarking data.
We know that in particular ethnicities you have higher burdens of poor health.
I think one of the key drivers of the neighbourhood's agenda,
as we bring things more local and we connect with residents better, the challenge that
we have is shaping our services in a way that works for our population. And I think that's
an ongoing challenge that we have, particularly in this borough where over 50 % of the population
of minority ethnic groups, and we have the overlay of deprivation. Thanks.
Thank you for your nice response. Is it agree, everyone?
May I ask a question with your permission, Jay?
Thank you very much. Now, this is not my question. This is a question of the lived experience
of my residence. Now who are these residents? Let me give you a brief idea.
I am the vice chair for OPRG in Age UK East London. You have been for one of the meetings.
That is in Tower Hamlets. I am also the chair for the PPG People's Party Physician Group
in Plythale Medical Centre. So what do I do? I talk less, I listen more.
I listen to their touch points, their pain points, and I try to bring it here.
And I take your good work, what you'll do, the remarkable, phenomenal work that you'll
do, which somehow does not get filtered out to the residents.
They are not aware of it.
So I am that bridge.
I am that catalyst.
Now madam, thank you for your presentation.
I have two questions for you, but they are short.
Brevity, I would say.
Number one, it's all about GPXS,
because they always talk to me about GPXS.
They always have these issues, GPXS.
But they don't know the work that you guys,
I mean, do behind the scenes.
So the first question is GPXS, waiting times.
What metrics are you all using
to improve the waiting times.
That's number one.
Number two, this is a cause for concern.
Same day appointment availability.
Number three, this is a burning issue nowadays.
Digital exclusion support.
And last but not the least,
practise variation across boroughs. Why does it vary? What is the variation? What is the progressive regression like on this?
And what measures have been taken to counteract this? I hope it's not too much, but...
It's not too much and they're all really important questions.
Thank you very much.
Again, I'm slightly on the back foot because I'm not necessarily the right person.
My primary care colleagues weren't able to be here.
There is significant work though taking place.
GP access we know is a recurring issue.
We talked about in the report the need to make sure things are improving definitely in terms of same day access
and it's really important that we make sure we secure that recurrent funding and keep that work going.
Digital exclusion is really interesting because actually one of the shifts in the 10 -year plan is about shifting to digital,
but we do, as has been well presented, you know, health literacy in terms of our population is quite low,
so we need to be really careful in terms about how we do that,
how we work in neighbourhoods to provide training and support
for residents in terms of where they can access, like for example,
the NHS app and the services that are given in terms
of through a digital lens.
And practise variation, these are all actually things
that are part of the National Neighbourhood Framework in terms
of some of the things that they want to see improvements on.
I'm not getting into specifics because I don't want to pretend like I know the specifics.
I haven't been in town and it's very long, so I don't want to give you an answer that's not correct.
So what I do want to do is make sure that we give you those answers, we pick up these issues and probably come back to it.
I know also there is an offer for League members to go out and visit Primary Care
and to start to understand some of the issues on the ground
and some of the work that they are doing to make sure that these things are improved.
Thank you very much.
Thank you Mr. Deshudyuk.
morph with the
Ato fur
Thank you.
We can move to the next agenda.
Secondly, we welcome Daniel Northam -Jones, Deputy Chief,
Executive, Royal London and My Lian Hospital, Bath Health,
Can I just ask if you could please introduction your presentation please.
Thank you very much chair, I also bring apologies to Dr Ashman who hoped to be here but hasn't been able to make it.
There's two slides I'll talk through briefly.
The first is focused on our Accident and Emergency Department performance.
And the second focus on acute care and some work we're doing out in the community more generally.
So starting with our urgent care performance, the graph on the right of the slide shows
the progress we've made over the last six months or so to improve our four hour standard
performance in the emergency department. This means 78 % of patients who came to our emergency
department were admitted, referred or discharged within four hours of arrival, which as you'll
see in the graph is a statistically significant improvement on where we've been previously.
We're really proud of that and our performance for that period was among the best in the country.
We've been awarded some national funding based on that performance,
which will obviously be invested in further improvements for our patients and your residents.
It's really important to note
that for our performance in emergency departments is not just a measure of how well the emergency department is doing.
It's a really good measure of the whole system performance and we've tried on the left of the slide
just to give a sense of how partnership with others is such an important part of
how we deliver improved access for patients. So with London Ambulance
Service through our REACH service and the Single Point of Access, this provides
a senior clinical review to patients before they're conveyed to the hospital
in an ambulance and means a significant number of patients, hundreds of patients
every month, are able to get the care that they need without an ambulance
bringing them to the hospital through an alternative pathway. That's better for
that patient, keeps them in their home, it frees up an ambulance to go and see
somebody else and it means the emergency department is less crowded and
congested for the patients that do need to be seen there. So it's a really great
example of partnership work that we're very very proud of. We also have our
urgent treatment centre, this is our GP led service in the south tower of the
hospital. So again we can work with local GPs to make sure patients can quickly
be seen by a GP a very short walk away from the main emergency department and
again for a lot of patients that means they can get the care that they need
much more quickly and again decompresses the main department so that the patients
that do need to be there and not working in a crowded environment with patients
in the corridor. Joe mentioned as well that we were working to expand same -day
access for GPs that will mean increasingly we're able to book patients
into a same -day appointment in their own practise,
so they could come to the UTC,
or they could come to their own practise,
and we're excited by that opportunity as well.
The third thing is around how we work
across the whole of the hospital,
particularly for patients in the emergency department
who need to be admitted to the hospital bed.
We are increasingly using data to plan how we manage
the 700 or so beds in the hospital,
so that we know who's going home on which day,
how we can support those patients to get home as quickly as possible and again that is a product of deep partnership
with our community and social care and primary care colleagues to enable those discharge to happen as quickly as possible.
So that we can avoid patients waiting too long for a bed in the emergency department so that we can quickly admit them to the right bed
so that they can start receiving the specialist inpatient care that they need.
So again I think there's a lot of opportunity there underpinning that strong improvement in our four hour performance
which is partly a product of very strong work with partners for which we're very grateful.
The second slide talks about some of our wider priorities for this year.
On the left hand side we recognise that collaboration is a really important part of how we work across the health and care system.
We recognise a number of our partners in the ICB have been to a very significant change over recent periods.
And it's very important to us that we keep deepening the partnership that we have across that health and care system.
We are also working with other hospitals across Barts Health, so the three other hospitals in Barts Health, particularly thinking about our surgical pathways.
So sometimes patients who are referred into Bart's Health might not always be seen at their local hospital.
It might be quicker to see them at another hospital in Bart's Health.
So we're increasingly working collaboratively within Bart's Health to support more patients to get access to the care that they need as quickly as possible.
But sometimes that might not be in their local hospital.
So we're helping patients to navigate through that process as well.
We've made some significant improvements in our outpatient services. Sending a
simple text message reminding patients that they have an appointment the
following week means that we've reduced by a quarter the number of patients who
don't turn up for an appointment. This is much better for those patients who often
might have completely innocently forgotten that they've had an
appointment and it's obviously better for their health that they're getting
the regular cheque -ups that they need to help them to stay well.
We're really proud of our Children's Hospital, our virtual wards.
Again, this is about helping patients to get care that would previously have been provided
in the hospital in their own home, supported by quick access to clinical teams remotely
and often by technology that all integrates together in a single model.
And we're really proud of the Community Diagnostic Centre at Mile End Hospital.
This is again about improving early access to the diagnostic tests that patients need
so that we can definitively diagnose disease and begin treatment where that's needed
and for patients who are worried about something we can rule things out as well.
Those diagnostics are such an important part of so many of our pathways.
On the right side of the slide we spend huge amounts of time,
the graph we showed you is about waiting times and that's really, really important.
It's also a measure of quality and safety
and we also measure a lot of other quality and safety measures around infection control,
patient experience, outcomes and that's really important part of our programme for this year.
We also have a big focus on reducing our waiting list for planned care, this is a big
priority for the for the government and for us. We've made a huge amount of progress in reducing
the patients who've waited a very long time for care. We're also reducing the average weight for
patients to be seen and in seeing an increasing number of patients within the
18 -week standard for planned care which we're pleased about. We've also over the
last year seen big improvements in our cancer performance we're now among the
best in the country for our faster diagnosis standard and for completing
treatment within 62 days. We have a big focus on proactive and preventative care
and a new programme called Find that's going to be screening blood tests done
in our lab to find patients who are high risk of developing metabolic disease but
where there's an opportunity to care for them more effectively, where they're prescribing
and they're coding and their care is not what NICE guidelines said it should be, so we can
identify gaps in care and then work with partners to fill them and we're really grateful for
the ICP's support significantly to scale that up based on some very successful pilots we
ran last autumn.
Finally, at the bottom are ongoing pressures and challenges.
We are really proud and grateful of our staff who are continuing to work under a great deal
of pressure. We have lots available to support our staff, there's always more
that we can do and we're looking at how we can enhance the support we have
available to them constantly. Local recruitment is really important to us
across our clinical education programmes but also across our admin and support
services. On Thursday I and a number of others from the hospital will be
attending a graduation ceremony from our Healthcare Horizons programme where we've
had a number of young people from the borough doing work placements within the
we're really really proud of the work that they've done. We continue to
struggle patients, a lot of our patients continue to struggle with
mental ill health and we're doing a lot of work with ELFT and with primary care
partners to improve pathways to support those patients in the emergency
department as inpatients and as they move back to alternative settings.
And finally we just note in our maternity services we've made very
significant progress over the last few years staffing up to meet our national
standards, a programming place to assure ourselves on the quality and safety of
services that we have, a lot of work on culture and communication and I think we
all have read the Ockendon and Amos reports with a great deal of interest
and that will be shaping a new set of national priorities that we think we're
well placed to respond to based on what we've done over the next few years and
we look forward to the next stage of developing those programmes. I hope that's
It is helpful by way of introduction.
Thank you Daniel, it is an effective and great idea.
Well done, thank you very much.
Thank you.
If any member, any questions?
Hi. Mine's more of a general question about data management and storage of data from patients.
How much control do we have kind of locally over what companies we want to be managing that data
compared to national guidelines of who's going to manage NHS data.
So we work within a national framework for how secure data is stored and accessed.
We know there have been some recent instances of patient data being inappropriately accessed by members of staff
So we have a big push on ensuring that our staff are only accessing data for patients under their care.
Whether there is a good clinical or operational reason why they need to be doing that.
In terms of the storage of data, we have servers here on site and close to London where we store securely all of the data.
We work with lots of suppliers to sort of exchange data, the major one being our
electronic patient record vendor, but also we have a lot of different software
systems in use at the trust where we're exchanging patient data, but that's
all done through a sort of clinical informatics and information governance
framework that's set nationally and implemented locally.
Is that helpful?
Yeah, I was just wondering how much pressure there is individually as NHS trusts to kind
of decouple from certain companies that have been in the headlines for various reasons,
whether that can be decided on an NHS trust level, whether that can only be decided on
a governmental level?
I think it depends on the nature of the programme of work.
I mean some national data is submitted anyway through standardised national reporting.
There are also more granular data that we hold as a trust that we have more discretion over what we can share.
Thank you for your nice response.
Any member have any questions? Yes, Councillor Poussaint.
Thank you, Chair. We also hear from many residents that when it comes to getting or making a referral from GP,
is very slow and even is even urgent and but the GP response to the referral is very, when
its timings matter, is still not satisfactory. How do you respond to that?
Yeah, we recognise that waits for planned care appointments are too long and we are
working to tackle the longest waiting patients.
We've made really great strides in that.
We're also bringing down the average weight
and seeing more patients within the 18 week threshold.
So I think in aggregate, that's an improving position.
For how long?
Sorry?
So the national standard for planned care
is to see patients within 18 weeks
and we're improving our performance markedly on that.
The NHS has also had a big focus on seeing patients who've waited longer than 52 and 65 weeks,
so significantly longer than the standard, in dramatically reducing those,
and we've made enormous strides in reducing those very long waiting patients,
while also improving our performance on the 18 week standard.
The performance varies or the waiting time varies quite a bit between specialties.
Some specialties patients are seeing very quickly, in others there are longer waits.
And those ones with the longest waits we're putting in very targeted plans to make sure we can add to the capacity that we need
and often collaborate across Bart's Health to make best use of the capacity we have available so that we can see patients more quickly.
The final thing to say is we have pioneered in Tower Hamlets with our primary care colleagues
something called advice and guidance which is where GPs are able to request advice without
needing an appointment and our specialists are able to provide without an appointment
advice back to the GP which means that some patients can quite quickly get access to what
they need without needing to wait for that appointment at the hospital.
So we're always trying to see what we can do to enhance that model.
Sometimes those patients might skip the first appointment and go straight to a diagnostic
test, for example, so you'd cut out an element of the pathway.
So we recognise the waits are too long for care.
We're doing what we can to bring things down, particularly in specialties that have the
longest waits.
And we also think it's a part of how we work to deepen our partnership with primary care
to mean that patients can get access to care through routes other than a first appointment.
So getting that into primary care
to really speed up that access as best we can.
All done. Here good work. Thank you, good response.
We take another one question. I think Councillor Abdul Wahid may ask the question please.
Thank you chair. Firstly, thank you very much for the presentation.
I have a very good question.
Two points.
One is in terms of, if I heard correctly, you've talked about something about appointment reminders.
I think that's something that I think for me and I've seen and I've had reports that's been really, really welcomed and I think that's really useful.
So congratulations on that.
And in terms of the next question that I have is,
in terms of recruitment,
in terms of what sort of recruitment drive do we have
in terms of basically a locally local recruitment drives
going into colleges, et cetera.
And what sort of strategy do we have to do
in regards to recruitment?
Thanks very much.
We have two big programmes that try to bring opportunities to young people locally to come and work at the hospital.
Project Search Healthcare Horizons are bringing in young people to work on placements in the hospital.
That might be in secretarial roles, it might be in estates and facilities, it could be in a whole range of different roles across the hospital.
and we're hugely proud of our partnership with local education providers and local charities
who provide additional support to those young people alongside the work experience that they gain in the hospital.
We hope that those will help young people to provide a pathway into what can be a really fulfilling career
career working in a hospital where many people will have been born and will feel a great affinity to.
So we're really proud of our workforce and keen to keep creating opportunities for people to have a really fantastic career working in the NHS.
Thank you. I move on to our next guest.
We welcome the John Obama, Bara Director, Adult Mental Health and Learning, a disabled
ELFT.
If you could please introduce your presentation, please.
Many thanks, Chair.
I'm just going to give a quick summary of my presentation.
So over the past year we have continued with our success around our discharge to assess.
So this is a programme to reduce the number of people that are well in hospital that need
to be housed.
So we support service users from a mental health perspective into the community.
So that project has been a success over the past year and that has now been funded by
the ICB so that is going to be ongoing.
and I think it talks to what Dan was saying which is how do we work together
to reduce the number of beds that are being used by people when they are well enough.
The other things that we're really really proud of is we're reducing the
length of stay that people with mental health issues stay in our hospital. So
last year I think I might have said in this room that we had our length of stay
which is the number of days that people stay in hospitals about 40 days that has
gone to about 32, between 28 and 32 days over the past year, which is a real substantial decrease.
That has meant that people from Tower Amulets use services in Tower Amulets which is closer to their
homes, so really, really proud of that. I also said last year that we were given money by NHS England
to support with the development of neighbourhood mental health centres, so we opened our centre
last May in Tower Amulets. There's some really, really positive results that we're
seeing at the moment. So for example, we can see that the Asian population within
PCN1, which is in Vethnal Green, has started to engage more with mental health
services, so about 38 % engagement increase within that space. People are
not missing their appointments, which is really good. The other part is that GP
appointments in that space which were usually used by people with mental health issues are
reducing so there is quite an impact in terms of that.
But also what we can see on our wards is that people who live in that area have reduced
the number of beds that they need to use in hospital so that's really, really positive.
I think more importantly what we have tried to do within that pilot is to get third sector
organisations to be part of our thinking and working and reaching some of the communities
that we struggle to do and I think that is making a real, real big impact.
So the other things that I just wanted to highlight from there is on top of the adult
social care CQC, we have also been visited by CQC but we are still awaiting the results
of our CQC and really proud that we worked with Chanel and colleagues to kind of help
with their CQC over the past year as part of our partnership within that.
Into the next year, just a number of things and I'm going to talk a little bit about
what Dan has said.
So we are going to be focusing on reducing the weights of people who are in the emergency
department, in particular focusing on four, 12 and 72 hour waits in ED and we've got clear plans of
how we're going to do that. We're going to further reduce the number of days that people spend in
our hospital. We know that seven to 14 days is good enough in terms of supporting people
in mental health hospitals so we're starting to think about doing that. We're going to be
increasing or trying to scale up our
neighbourhood centres across our amulets.
So we're trying to work out a business case at the moment
in terms of how we do that really fantastic work
which holds people in the community rather than in hospital.
So it's almost things that colleagues were saying
which is integrated neighbourhood working,
actually working within the neighbourhood.
So that's what we want to do over the next year.
We're also focusing on the waiting list for ADHD
and autism in our young people in the borough.
So that is going to be a piece of work
that we'll be looking at.
And finally, just to say, we're going to be expanding
our schools' mental health teams.
So that's another piece of work that we'll be doing
in schools for young people in the borough.
Finally, with Shoman and colleagues,
we're going to be renewing our strategy
for mental health in the borough
over the next six to nine months.
So by next year this time we should have a new joint strategy for mental health for the
Tower Hundreds.
I'll take questions, Chair, if there's any.
Thank you for your about.
Do members have any questions?
I have a question.
May I ask Jay?
Yeah, thank you very much.
There is so much of good work is being done, which is if you were to list three of them,
one year from now, July 2027, what would be your biggest achievement, your biggest priority,
the biggest need for the welfare of the residents of Tower Hamlet?
Just please, please.
So if I was maybe taking it in turn really, I think if I had a magic wand, what I would
want is to have neighbourhood health centres across Tower Hamlets.
I think that would be really, really important.
I think what you can see is that it really helps people to stay well in the community.
And I think it allows for people to thrive.
I think when you take people into hospital, it's not the right thing.
And I think that there is something about when people are in hospital, you actually make them unwell sometimes.
So that there is something around that.
I think the second bit for me, if any mental health service user was in ED and they could get a bed straight away,
if they needed it, I think that would be one of the things that I would be really thinking about.
I think the final thing that I would say is in terms of inequalities across the barrow,
I want that to change so that people can be seen in the community rather than within crisis pathways.
So those are three things in my mind if I was to have a magic wand and want those things to work.
Those are the things that I think would work for me.
You said you think will work. But there is a doubt.
They will work but I'm also being realistic that actually with the best intentions in the world
I don't think everything works as well as you can.
For example, the neighbourhood centres will need a bit of money
and if we don't get the money, I think we have to space it over a number of years.
So that's why I'm saying if I could do that by next year in May, that would be fantastic.
Thank you very much. I wish you all the best in your aspirations.
Thank you for your response, thank you for your nice question.
Daniel wants to come to the end as well.
I think, Councillor Mohit, can you ask your question please?
Thank you, Chair. Again, thank you for the presentation.
Just one question. I think you've touched on the matter at the end of your presentation
around the work that you are doing around schools and mental health. I know it's a big
issue around adults etc. But in terms of when it comes to young people sometimes basically
that is seen less and we're improving but I think that's so important. Young people
go through mental stress, etc. issues. Can you elaborate a bit more in terms of what
sort of work you're doing with young people and schools and how you, what is your strategy
to get them more involved and information showing how could they get access to these
kinds of information?
so on a detailed terrain, I phone and I have close conversation with athletes personally
What we are starting to see is that children are being picked up much earlier and much
earlier before they get really unwell and being supported and signposted to the right
pathways around mental health.
So I think that is part of the work that we are doing.
Our schools mental health teams do a lot of work within the schools and I also know that
our calm services do visit many spaces in Taormel to tell people about mental health
services and what that looks like.
And they do a lot of promotions throughout the year.
And I know they'll be doing a lot of work
in the World Mental Health Week,
which is starting in October,
but actually that is part of the ongoing work
that we do every time as part of that.
Also, Councillor, an invitation for you
to our CAMS team if you want,
and they'll be able to take you through some of the work
that they do within that space.
Thank you very much for that answer.
Also basically in terms of as you know when it comes to mental health there's a lot of
stigma around that.
And how are we working with in terms of faith organisations and faith groups in terms of
trying to get the message across that basically mental health, there is an issue around mental
health and breaking that stigma because definitely we know within the Asian community there is
a lot of stigma around mental health and we try and cover it up with different excuses
and reasoning.
So what are we doing?
I think faith organisations play a huge part in terms of the reach that they have and the
work that they do.
So what are we doing in this strategy around working with faith organisations, mosques, gersh, etc?
Thank you, Councillor, for that question. So we've been intentionally doing that over the past five, six years in ELFT.
One of the most important bits around some of our work is that we actually recruit local people.
We are deliberate about third sector organisations that we work with.
For example, in the adult mental health and annoying children's mental health, we look
at the patient population or at least the population within an area and think through
about which ethnic minorities or ethnic groups are represented within that demographic and
we recruit intentionally from those communities so that we can help to get the message across
to all of the communities.
I know we work with most churches and other places across town, we know that mental health
awareness is a really important part of that. We also work with our colleagues within public
health. We've been doing over the past two, three, probably five years to kind of pass
the message around mental health and what it means, what it looks like and how people
can be supported within that. So I hope that's helpful, Councillor.
Thank you for your response.
I would like to thank all of our partners for setting out their pilot ties and we look forward to scrutinise the progress of those as they feed into our work programme.
It is important that we continue to build a strong and collaborative working relationship
with our health partners to ensure transparency and accountability to the public.
The information shared will assist us in developing our annual Scooto New World Programme.
We invite you to remain for the decision that flows if you are able to.
However, we understand that if you are not able to remain for the rest of the meeting,
you may leave at this point if you wish to.
Can we please note this information shared under this item to inform our decision about the annual Scootinewaar programme?
Can we agree everyone? Then we move to the next agenda, the draught work programme.
Bearing in mind the earlier presentation, we will now move to a decision about the draught
Scootiny Walk programme and I will hand over to the Scootiny Officer to introduce the item
before we discuss it in details. Julie, over to you then please.
Thank you.
Members, as this is your first meeting, I thought it would be helpful, as is the normal
practise for the first meeting, to do a bit of an exercise where we can kind of look at
what potential items could be considered for your work programme.
The paper before you does not include the items that are considered for your work programme.
outline obviously that it is member -led but I hope you appreciate that because
of the time that it took to start the first meeting it was necessary just to
kind of have a look at some topics perhaps from last year and working and
having discussions with officers and cabinet members as well just to try
and outline potential topics. So that's what I've done for you and throughout
those discussions there are some indicative dates as well that have come
So where those have presented, I've slotted it under a date, but obviously, because you've heard all the presentations tonight about priorities, things may well change.
So it's over to you really to kind of have a look at the items that are listed.
I put some points on page 47 to consider as well.
So obviously you've heard about the priorities from partners.
Just to have a manageable size to the agenda really in terms of having perhaps three items to consider at each meeting.
There are different types of scrutiny exercise as well.
So spotlight are your agenda items.
You might want to consider potential areas to have more in -depth scrutiny as well.
a challenge session, which would be like a themed meeting,
or a task and finish type scrutiny review,
which could be a few meetings undertaken within a set timeframe.
So that's something to consider.
The other things to consider, and we've heard a lot of good work
and examples of places that you may want to perhaps visit
to have more in -depth insight into about services,
for example, at BART or the GP service.
So that's something that I'm happy to share any notes that I've taken to kind of prompt you to
consider whether or not that's something you'd like to do and that's something I can take forward
for you. Opportunities as well, looking at opportunities for stakeholder engagement. We've
heard comments that have come through and that's quite an important part of scrutiny as you know.
So you know be looking to yourselves to input really if you know of groups that you'd like
to involve in this work through the work programme.
That's something that it would be really good
to have your input there as well.
So to consider as well any topics that may impact
on more than one borough, we've just nominated tonight
some representatives on the Inner North East London
Joint Health Overfue and Scrutiny Committee,
INLJOS for short.
So that's something that you could consider,
whether that topic is more relevant for the INLJOS
or if it needs to fit on this agenda.
Just a reminder, we have five meetings, limited time,
and as you can see, a work programme
that's already got lots of items on it already
for you to think about or discard as you wish.
So over to you to have that discussion.
Chair, I hand back to you. Thank you, Chair.
Thank you very much. Thank you for your suggestion, your response.
Thank you. Are there any comments, questions or suggestions in relation to the draught Scootinewar programme?
Mine's just a question. If something does come up as the months go on, can we submit it to you to slot into the agenda at some point?
Yes, that's right, Councillor. So any topics, feel free to email them to myself and I'll have that discussion with the Chair and the Vice Chair.
The Work Programme, although it's kind of set, there will be a Work Programme discussion that's going to be taking place for the overview and scrutiny committee.
So it's the overview that actually sets the Work Programme for all of the scrutiny committees.
So this discussion tonight and any discussions between now and September will help, or now in July actually,
will help to inform the overviews consideration of the work programme before it's set and
represented to the overviews. Daniel will probably explain. It gets represented to the
overview in September and to this committee as well. So you will have the final say. Thank
you, Chair.
Just to add on to what Jilly said there, so the overview and scrutiny committee will be
in their work programme and workshop on the 28th of July and that will be an opportunity
for the overview and scrutiny committee members to meet with cabinet leads, to meet with corporate
directors, consider the big key policy areas coming up in the year, the big areas of priority
for the council and to start to put the work programme together. But it's important for
us as well that each of the subcommittees get an opportunity to feed into that as well.
So tonight Gillies give you a brief outline of what we might want to include at the subcommittee
level. You've heard from officers as well about the key things coming up as well. You
don't have to be put on the spot to come up with anything tonight. The process will be
we'll have a workshop on the 28th and then as an officer team we'll work with the chairs
and the leads to confirm what that looks like for our subcommittees. So in September we'll
be agreeing that final work programme at OSE. So really you've got until the 28th of July
to give us some initial suggestions on what you think you'd want to include at this committee.
And then after that we'll make sure the committee can see the outcome of the workshop on the
28th as well and have an opportunity to give their agreement and views on that as well.
So there's a couple of opportunities to do it. Tonight's the first opportunity to hear
what officers are saying, to sort of go through Gillie's research, but there will be opportunities
as well after this defeating.
Thank you, chair. Thank you. Just quickly, Daniel, in terms of basically this is just
to for my information, this is something that we are subcommittee where we are going to
be looking at in terms of going forward as a committee. And yeah, so is that what we're
about here yeah? Yeah so this is what the committee is going to be looking at this year so what items
do we want on the forward plan for the health and adults subcommittee? Gilly has listed quite a few
items that we might want to look at but it's the opportunity for you to feed into that. Okay so
we'll get another opportunity if there's something that basically we go away from this meeting and
think actually this is something that would be and we can bring that forward afterwards and we've
to September did you say? Yeah definitely there's opportunities to feed in after this so if anything
comes up after this feed it into the chair feed it into Gilly. The final work programme will be
signed off in September so in an ideal world you'll give us some items before the 28th of July so
that we can feed that to the overview and scrutiny committee members as part of their workshop but
if things come up after that as well we still want subcommittee members to feel like they're
they're feeding in and influencing what the final outcome looks like.
So up until September.
Thank you Daniel, thank you very much.
Can we agree to note any change to the work programme
in view of the presentation received at this meeting?
Delight the Scoot -a -Nueva -Sci to arise
with the HSSC and the OSC regarding any further amendments to the work programme.
Ahead of the next meeting in September, I am to schedule in some site busy to cross
and with forthcoming agenda items.
Any other business?
There is no other business scheduled for this meeting.
The date of next meeting is 7 September, 2026.
So I now call the meeting to a close.
Thank you everyone for attending.
Have a good night.