Minutes:
The Chief Officer, NHS Darlington Clinical Commissioning Group, circulated a summary of the NHS Long Term Plan at the meeting. The summary outlined the priorities of the plan; stated that local NHS organisations would work with partners to turn those ambitions into improvements; and set out how the NHS would overcome the challenges it faced, such as staff shortages and growing demand for services by doing things differently, preventing illness and tackling health inequalities, backing the NHS workforce, making better use of data and digital technology and getting the most out of taxpayers’ investment in the NHS.
The Chief Officer gave an update to the Board on the Integrated Care Systems (ICS). The ICS was a group of local NHS organisations working together with each other, local councils and other partners, on developing and implementing their own strategies for the next five years on how they intended to take the ambitions of the NHS Long Term Plan and turn them into local actions to improve services and the health and wellbeing of the communities they served. It was reported that the North Cumbria and North East ICS was the biggest ICS, with a population of around 3.2M and it would focus on prevention and early intervention; ambulance services; work force planning; specialist services; policy development in order to eradicate the ‘post code’ lottery of services; local partnership working; and on ‘wrapping’ services around local communities. Particular reference was made to the fact that the region had one of the best performing health authorities but tended to have the poorest outcomes.
Discussion ensued on the aligning of services; NHS targets; making the NHS resilient; the changes that have been implemented to date to improve services; delayed discharges; and the prevention and intermediate care agenda.
RESOLVED – That the thanks of the Board be conveyed to the Chief Officer, NHS Darlington Clinical Commissioning Group, for her update.
RESOLVED – To convey the views of the Board.