Agenda item

Purpose: To consider a proposal to form a new Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee, reporting to the Overview and Scrutiny Management Commission, which would be responsible for scrutiny of Public Health and NHS services in West Berkshire.

(Councillor Steve Masters declared a personal interest by virtue of the fact that he was a trustee of Eight Bells for Mental Health and Councillor Tony Vickers declared a personal interest by virtue of the fact that his wife (Councillor Martha Vickers) was a non-executive Board Member of Healthwatch. As their interest was a personal or an other registrable interest, but not a disclosable pecuniary interest, they determined to remain to take part in the debate and vote on the matter.)

The Chairman provided an overview to Items 5 and 6. He stated that the Council had statutory powers to scrutinise health providers who provided services to West Berkshire residents. There had been several recent consultations about changes to health services that had to be directed to a scrutiny committee. Also, the development of the Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West Integrated Care System (ICS) created a requirement for joint scrutiny of their activities. He explained that the Council was proposing to set up a Health Scrutiny Committee, which would report to OSMC, and that members of that Committee would represent West Berkshire on the Joint Committee when considering activities at the ICS level.

Gordon Oliver introduced a report that sought to consider a proposal to form a new Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee to undertake scrutiny of Public Health and NHS services in West Berkshire. He noted that health scrutiny had its own legislation which required bodies to consult local authorities’ health scrutiny committees on any proposals they had for substantial developments or changes in services. He highlighted that the legislation gave local authorities powers to scrutinise the planning, development and operation of the health service, and that health scrutiny committees could make recommendations to and require responses from NHS bodies. He noted that OSMC was responsible for health scrutiny, but it lacked the capacity and specialist expertise to do this in depth, so a new Health Scrutiny Committee was proposed, which would set its own work programme and set up task groups to undertake in-depth reviews. He noted that provision would be made for up to two non-voting co-opted members to provide specialist advice on particular reviews. A 0.5 FTE Scrutiny Officer post would be required to coordinate meetings and provide policy support. This had been identified as a budget pressure for 2021/22.

Councillor Dillon noted the options listed in the report and suggested that neither Full Council nor OSMC would be able to respond to health consultations in an efficient way. He supported the proposal, but wanted the number of members to be left undefined at this stage. He welcomed more health scrutiny given the level of public money spent on health. He suggested that it would be wise to also scrutinise the private healthcare providers in West Berkshire.

Councillor Cole agreed with the proposal and suggested that any issues with the meeting quorum could be addressed through substitutes.

The Chairman agreed that the number of members should be left undefined at this stage.

Resolved that OSMC:

(a)  SUPPORT the proposal for a Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee, reporting to Overview and Scrutiny Management Commission, to undertake scrutiny of Public Health services, and the planning, development and operation of NHS services for the citizens of West Berkshire; and.

(b)  RECOMMEND that Council delegates scrutiny of Public Health and NHS services in West Berkshire to the Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee; and

(c)  RECOMMEND that Council approves the terms of reference for the Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee