Agenda and minutes

To approve the minutes of the meeting held on 22 September 2020 as an accurate record.

The minutes of the meeting held on 22 September 2020 were agreed as an accurate record.

In accordance with the Council’s Code of Conduct and the statutory provisions of the Localism Act, Members and co-opted Members of the Council are reminded that it is a requirement to register disclosable pecuniary interests (DPIs) and gifts and hospitality to the value of which exceeds £50 or multiple gifts and/or instances of hospitality with a cumulative value of £50 or more when received from a single donor within a rolling twelve month period. In addition, Members and co-opted Members are reminded that unless their disclosable pecuniary interest is registered on the register of interests or is the subject of a pending notification to the Monitoring Officer, they are required to disclose those disclosable pecuniary interests at the meeting. This should be done by completing the Disclosure of Interest form and handing it to the Democratic Services representative at the start of the meeting. The Chair will then invite Members to make their disclosure orally at the commencement of Agenda item 3. Completed disclosure forms will be provided to the Monitoring Officer for inclusion on the Register of Members’ Interests.

There were none.

To receive notice of any business not on the agenda which in the opinion of the Chair, by reason of special circumstances, be considered as a matter of urgency.

There were no items of urgent business.

The Chair took the opportunity to explain that due to the rapid changing nature of COVID-19 and responses at national and local level to presenting issues, it was agreed for late presentation of papers. This was to ensure that the data and information presented with was up to date and relevant.

The Sub-Committee will be provided with a verbal update on the ongoing response of local health and social care services to the covid-19 pandemic.

An update on the work within the Adults Service to address the Council’s budgetary challenges will also be provided in this item.

The Sub-Committee is asked to review the information provided, with a view to:-

1.    Considering what conclusions to make from the information provided.

2.    Considering whether to make any recommendations.

The Chief Executive and Place Based leader for Health, the Director of Integration and Innovation Health, Wellbeing and Adults and the Director of Public Health outlined the details in a Presentation.

Following the presentation, Members were given the opportunity to ask questions.

A Member asked what lessons had been learnt with regards to care homes and the high number of deaths in the first wave and if there were any areas of weakness that had been identified as still requiring attention. The Director of Public Health informed the Committee that she was now the Association of Directors of Public Health lead around care homes across London. There had been a lot of useful learning around care homes since the beginning of the pandemic and there was a strategic care homes group that met on a regular basis that consists of commissioners, GP’s and other Public Health professionals. The group engage in conversations around lessons learned, rapid regular routine testing of workforce and what else can be done to ensure reduced numbers of Covid within care home and domiciliary care settings. This way of working and building of relationships was also evident within children’s social care and its care homes. More work needed to be done to areas of improvement such as information on how people can improve and maintain their health as well as infection control. There was also work to be done on improving services for people with mental health affected by Covid and access for families to visits their relatives in care homes. Officers added that one of the biggest challenge was in the management of the winter emergency workload and well as increased Covid hospital admission that may occur. The risk around the impact on staff must also not be underestimated.

In response to a Member question on what steps had been taken to improve community access to GP’s which was severely impacted and restricted by the first wave of Covid, and the challenges of a virtual service officers said that the facility for patients to have face to face appointment where needed was in place. Whilst virtual consultations were in place and were offered in the first place for primary and secondary services and worked well for some people and conditions or different stages of treatment, complicated diagnoses in primary or secondary care that require face to face appointment were  and mould still go ahead. The opportunity of offering a convenient responsive service on a virtual basis for patients was valuable. The important lesson learned from the first wave was maintenance of access to face to face appointment through the use of sensible precautions put in place.

In response to a follow up question on the COVID Vaccine and how challenges around capacity for the nationwide roll out was being mitigated, officers said that the magnitude of getting the whole population who qualify for the COVID vaccine vaccinated was realised and there was specific work underway to identify workforce to carry out the administrative  ...  view the full minutes text for item 24/20

The Sub-Committee is presented with the Annual Report from the Croydon Safeguarding Adults Board and is asked to review the document, with a view to developing any recommendations it may wish to make.

The Director of Operations, Adult Social care presented the report and the following was noted:

·       The Annual report covered 2018/19 and included some update on Covid

·       The board has decided to keep the same priorities as the previous year as it was felt that enough progress had not been made in areas of making safeguarding personal, hearing the voice of residents and improving communication and engagement.

·       A new training and improvement subgroup has been established to engage with outcomes and recommendations that arise from any serious adult reviews, as the last serous adult review identified a serious gap in work across partner agencies.

·       Improved engagement with Black and Asian Minority Ethnic communities of Croydon was a priority.

·       Continuation of Brexit as well and Covid had increased pressures on services. There has been strong partnerships, good collaboration and cross party efforts to navigate through theses challenging times.

·       Areas that required improvement are mental health, vulnerable and missing persons which are all areas that impact greatly on police resourcing and it was important that they receive services tailored to their needs.

Following presentation of the report, the sub-committee was given the opportunity to pose questions to the partners.

The Chair took the opportunity to remind members that the purpose was to test whether the partnership arrangements in Croydon were robust and examine whether there was any evidence of good practice and delivery of service.

In response to a Member question on what the biggest challenges for the partnership was and where improvements needed to be made, officers said that the partnership relationship was robust and aside from evolving challenges from Covid, Austerity remained a concern. The volume of referrals was often a concern from an operational level and ensuring that risk assessments were conducted with the right decisions made in a timely manner. Additionally it was important that safeguarding be person centred with the voice of the person heard. It was important from the police point of view that they be well staffed and able to make the right risk assessments and judgements as necessary.

A Member asked what was being done to create a baseline to measure safeguarding equalities in a diverse borough as Croydon and what interventions were in place to minimise and respond to resident discontent and communication barriers. Officers said that work had commenced in January 2020 to meet with professionals who would act as representatives of the community as well as bring forward their own experiences to gather information on what needs to be done to tackle safeguarding inequalities and this work will be expanded further down the line to include gathering information from Croydon residents. In order to ensure cultural competence by professionals dealing with families that  present complex issues including faith and cultural differences, professionals were encouraged to attend workshops and training sessions to keep them informed , up to date and equipped to deal with the many people of different backgrounds encountered. Operation managers were responsible for ensuring that their staff receive the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 25/20

The following motion is to be moved and seconded where it is proposed to exclude the press and public from the remainder of a meeting:

“That, under Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act, 1972, the press and public be excluded from the meeting for the following items of business on the grounds that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information falling within those paragraphs indicated in Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972, as amended.”

This was not required.