Agenda item

Purpose: The Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West Integrated Care Board (ICB) to provide an update on activities and commissioning plans.

Sarah Webster, Executive Place Director Berkshire West, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West Integrated Care Board gave an overview of the report (Agenda Item 8). Sarah Webster advised that the Integrated Care Partnership (ICP) Strategy had recently been finalised. It was an amalgamation of the Health and Wellbeing Board strategies. The feedback would be published along with the ICP responses.

The Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West Integrated Care Board (BOB ICB) were preparing their annual Joint Forward Plan. This was an NHS plan on how they would deliver on the commitments of the Strategy over the next five years. This was refreshed every year and was an evolving document. It would be published in July. Berkshire West as a ‘Place’ was a focus. This was building on previous joined up working to make progress on behalf of residents and to be accountable.

Sarah Webster advised the Committee that the Urgent Care Centre pilot was underway at the Broad Street Mall in Reading. It was for urgent illness not injury. It would run for 18 months to see if it helped the needs of the population and took pressure off the Emergency Department and other services. It had capacity to see 100 patients a day consisting of 50 self-presentations and 50 referrals from a GP or the Emergency Department. Sarah Webster noted that they were seeing lower utilisation than expected despite ongoing pressures on the Emergency Department. They were looking into reasons for this and were improving communications to the public. Feedback from West Berkshire was that Reading was not easy to travel to. It was open 7 days a week 8am to 8pm. There was more demand at weekends. They would be continuing to review the impact and would update the Committee when they had confirmed their long term plans at the end of the pilot.

Sarah Webster advised that there was a national £500,000,000 fund to support adult social care and the care needs of people leaving hospital. Sarah Webster made reference to the slide in the report which gave more detail on the many reasons why people were delayed in hospital, noting it was not only due to adult social care services. West Berkshire were allocated £1,200,000 to be spent by the end of this financial year. It had gone to domiciliary care packages and social worker capacity to support adult social care teams. Sarah Webster noted that this had been a good example of the NHS working in partnership with Adult Social Care. They would evaluate the impact that this had had and how they would plan for the future.

Sarah Webster advised the committee that the NHS All Age Continuing Healthcare (CHC) Transformation programme was underway. She advised CHC was a package of care that required an assessment. The Transformation programme would focus on reducing inconsistencies and streamlining the process. There was a focus on relationships. They would also review their operational processes and policies. They would then finalise the recommendations. In Berkshire West they were also reviewing the joint funding policy and would be undertaking a trial of a new policy in April 2023.

Councillor Alan Macro asked for clarification regarding the urgent care centre communications and advised that utilisation might have been lower than anticipated due to initial communications not being clear on how to obtain an appointment. Sarah Webster confirmed that people could walk in, but might be given an appointment later in the day after being triaged.