Agenda item

To receive a paper of Hounslow and Richmond Community Healthcare NHS Trust detailing the timetable and process to secure Foundation Trust status and seeking feedback from the Committee on its overall proposals, strategic objectives and service development priorities.

Councillor Jones resumed Chairmanship of the Committee.

The Committee received a report of the Hounslow and Richmond Community Healthcare NHS Trust (HRCH) regarding the obligation for them to become a Foundation Trust and the work being undertaken to achieve this.

Richard Tyler, Chief Executive of HRCH and Steve Swords Chairman of HRCH were in attendance to make a presentation to the committee.  The presentation referred, in particular, to the following:

(i)      The benefits of Foundation Trust authorisation

(ii)    Governance arrangements in place and the 5 year business plan currently being produced

(iii)   The process and timeline for the application, of which the consultation at hand was part

(iv)  HRCH vision, strategic objectives and service development plans

(v)    Engagement strategy

The Committee discussed the information in the report and that received in the presentation; the following themes were explored and in response to comments made and questions raised the following additional information was received from the officers in attendance:

(i)      That HRCH was the Trust under which responsibility for Teddington Memorial Hospital would fall.  The transfer of the hospital to the HRCH FT was part of the application and therefore subject to the risk assessment and rigour that all aspects of the application would be.

(ii)    That the Chief Executive and Chairman  were aware of the strength of feeling in the community relating to Teddington Memorial Hospital, but that Government regulation was clear on the matter of hospital transfer to Foundation Trusts and that should the application be successful the transfer would go ahead.  They acknowledged that they had not been present at recent meetings organised to discuss the transfer but also reported that they had not received an invite.

(iii)   That the Trust had every intention of continuing services at the Teddington Memorial hospital.

(iv)  That the Integrated Business Plan (IBP)  document was currently being signed of by various stages of the NHS process.  On completion of this process there would be a comprehensive stakeholder consultation of which the Committee would be part

(v)     HRCH confirmed that officers were happy to continue to attend the committee until that point to ensure that scrutiny was maintained.

(vi)  That the application would show how the Trust proposed to deal with the different requirements of the populations using its services, including those people who lived outside of the Borough.  Early intervention and preventative work on which there was currently a common emphasis in health care required a thorough knowledge of the people using or likely to use services.

(vii)That ‘Whitton Corner’ would not transfer to the Foundation Trust should it be established.  This was related to the rules of the Department of Health and the consideration that this establishment was deemed to deliver primary care  as opposed to community  services.

(viii)            That the Whitton ‘poly-clinic’ had been built to partly provide walk-in services and this may no longer be the case.  HRCH confirmed that it need not be so, they would deliver what commissioners wished to commission.

It was RESOLVED

1.                              That the report and information received be NOTED.

2.                              That the committee continue to be updated on the progress of the FT application