Agenda item

Kate Parker, Head of Public Health Business Programmes at Cambridgeshire County Council, will advise the partnership of agenda items that were considered at the Health Committee meeting on 16 March 2017 and the outcome of any considerations by the committee. 

The agenda for the meeting, the paper about the proposed change to the Chesterton Out of Hours base (including Health Impact Assessment and letter from City Executive Councillor) and a report on Cambridgeshire’s Air Quality is attached. 

The CCG said that it would bring back the key findings from the Out of Hours base consultation on to the Health Committee meeting and take forward comments for consideration by the CCG’s Governing Body on 21 March. No report was available at the time of publication.

Kate Parker, Head of Public Health Business Programmes at Cambridgeshire County Council, updated the Partnership on the work of the Cambridgeshire Health Committee.

Kate Parker explained that although the Cambridgeshire Health Committee had no decision making powers, it had dual functions- a statutory duty to scrutinise the National Health Service and a remit to comment on wider Public Health matters.

The Committee had considered a number of matters including a proposal to move the Out of Hours service from its current location in Chesterton to the Addenbrooke’s Hospital site. The Council had received a public petition asking for the consultation to be re-run because it had not considered the impacts of the proposed change on a range of groups of people in line with the Equality Duty.

The following concerns regarding relocating the service had been raised at the Committee:

     i.        It would disadvantage the local community because they would have difficulty getting to the new site because public transport was so limited.

    ii.        The proposed move did not consider the original reason for the location of the service, which was to be accessible to the most deprived communities in Cambridge The consultation process, was inadequate because very little effort was made to consider the impacts of the change across each of the groups of people with “protected characteristics”.

   iii.        Insufficient mitigations had been offered for communities affected by the changes.

It was said that Cambridgeshire Health Committee had been split when considering the proposal, with only a narrow voting in favour (with caveats) of the change.

The Partnership raised the following concerns regarding the decision:

     i.        The consultation process had been inadequate.

    ii.        The Equality Impact Assessment had been limited and special need groups, such as Traveller communities, had not been consulted, with potential disadvantages to women not considered.

  iv.        The consultation did not present sufficient and good information to allow local people to reach an informed view.

   v.        Awareness of the consultation was limited in the local community and engagement with community groups had been minimal.

The Partnership asked what room there was to appeal against the decision to support the proposed change. It was said that there was limited opportunity for the Health Committee to do much more than raise concerns about the process because the change was probably not sufficient to warrant a referral to the Secretary of State, who could ask the CCG to reconsider a proposal. The Partnership asked to be kept informed about what mitigation the CCG would come forward with to ensure local people weren’t too disadvantaged by the change.

The Partnership agreed that their concerns should be formally fed back to the Cambridgeshire Health Committee. Councillor Johnson undertook to write to the Chair of the Committee outlining the Partnerships concerns.

The Cambridgeshire Health Committee also considered air quality and its effect on public health. Yvonne O’Donnell gave an update on the City Council’s contribution.

     i.        Improving air quality is a priority for Cambridge City Council.

    ii.        Emissions from busses and taxis in the City Centre are a major problem.

   iii.        The City had been successful is being awarded a grant to install fast charging points for electric taxis.

  iv.        Once suitable infrastructure was in place, policy decisions would follow to encourage the taxi trade to convert to cleaner vehicles.

   v.        Discussions were on-going to encourage South Cambridgeshire district council to adopt a similar policy.