Issue - meetings

Sharon Morrow, Chief Operating Officer, Barking and Dagenham Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) presented the report on the work that had been undertaken in the development of the strategy so far and its context in the national and regional level in regard to the delivery of accessible, proactive and coordinated care for all patients.  Sharon explained that in order for the CCG to address the challenges the CCG was working with strategic commissioning partnerships and providers from across Barking and Dagenham towards a clear, coherent and achievable strategy for primary care transformation.  The Strategy would outline the vision for primary care services in the Borough over the next five years and Stakeholder engagement was being held throughout the spring and summer, with the results being used to shape the final Strategy.  The Strategy would be produced through three phases, the first phase was the development of the strategy through a bottom-up approach, the second phase would be looking at the vision and identifying the challenges and where the partners wished to be in five years time and the third phase would be the embedding and delivery of the strategy taking into account other transformational change programmes relevant to the delivery of planned and unplanned care services. 

The challenges would include better IT usage, the need to increase staffing levels at Primary Care level and also reducing wastage.  Matthew Cole advised that he attends the Transformation Group and this was looking at how to attract and retain GPs. Support from BHRUT and different ways of partnership working could alleviate pressures and improve expertise in the GP practices.

The Chair reminded the Board that in addition to the 55 to 60 GPs retiring in the near future, the Local Plan had identified the need for 20 more GPs due to the anticipated population growth in the Borough.  The Chair added that the three CCGs were separate and she would not wish to see them merged as there was no one size fits all solution and the difference between neighbouring boroughs’ needs and priorities could be vast; the documents need to clearly show the needs of LBBD.  Dr Mohi agreed that services needed to ensure they had a local theme, were clinically led and met the particular needs of LBBD as the LBBD’s needs were not the same as the rest of London or neighbouring boroughs.

Dr Moghal commented that was a need for organisations to keep challenging fortress mentality within their organisations and move towards partnership and relationship working.  BHRUT was looking at how it could build on relationships with GPs and improve and contribute to the attractiveness of the area for GPs.  BHRUT would report on aspects of this over the coming months.

NHS England was looking at improving GP Practices performance; however the national recommendations needed to be looked at in light of local priorities and needs.

Anne Bristow commented that partners now had the opportunity to think differently.  The new development areas in the Borough would enable partners to look  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6