To consider any question of which notice has been given under Council Procedure Rule 11.2.
Minutes:
1. Mazars Report
Question from Councillor Pope to Councillor Bogle, Chair of Health Overview and Scrutiny Panel
Bearing in mind the clear failings of leadership identified in the Mazars report into Southern Health, why did you not insist that both the Chief Executive and Chair of Southern Health attend the Extraordinary HOSP meeting? Why were the papers submitted to members at that Extraordinary HOSP allowed to be so flawed with key information missing?
Answer
I asked for an extra meeting of the Health Overview and Scrutiny Panel to look at the findings of the Mazar’s report on unexplained deaths at Southern Health over a 4 year period in December. It took some time to find a suitable date which was finally scheduled for Monday 1st February 2016. Once agreed, the Chief Executive was invited to attend the meeting; subsequently we were informed that the Chief Executive was on holiday at that time but assurances were made that appropriate representatives from Southern Health’s senior management team would attend the meeting.
Representing Southern Health at the 1 February HOSP meeting were Dr Lesley Stevens, Medical Director and Dr Chris Gordon, Chief Operating Officer and Director of Performance, Quality and Safety, who were able to answer all the questions posed by members of the Panel and members of the public present. Ruth Williams, NHS England Director of Nursing (Wessex) and John Richards, Chief Officer of Southampton City CCG were also in attendance representing the commissioners.
One appendix, the Southern Health Action Plan, was not submitted in its entirety because of problems converting from Excel to Word. This genuine error by Southern Health was picked up, recirculated and put into the public domain as agreed at the meeting. The Panel will be reviewing the issues raised in this report, particularly in light of mental health commissioning plans and what this means for the city until we feel assured that progress is being made.
2. Looked After Children
Question from Councillor Pope to Councillor Keogh, Chair of Children and Families Scrutiny Panel
At a meeting of this Panel in 2015, it was stated that the reasons were unclear as to why Southampton has a relatively high number of Children Looked After compared to comparator cities. Has work been done by the Council to determine the reasons since then? If so, what are the reasons?
Answer
In November 2015 a Looked After Children (LAC) Diagnostic was undertaken in order to gain a clear picture of the children in the care of Southampton. This showed that there was a significant increase in LAC between the years 2009 – 2015 from 66 per 10,000 to 120 per 10,000. The speed of increase accelerated from April 2015 following the Ofsted Inspection of May & July 2014 published 15th September 2014. Changes to Early Help in April 2014 and 4 Serious Case reviews published May/June 2014. The numbers peaked in August 2015 when a new Children in Need Panel and Residential panel started to have an impact along with the decision to accommodate moving from Principal Officer to Director level, which has had a downward impact reducing the numbers to 35 less in March 2016 than in August 2015. The aim of the current work is to reduce the number of children in care to 500 by September 2016, by ensuring that adoption orders are made for children already in adoption placements, more children are placed for adoption and more children move from care to Special Guardianship Orders. There will also be a focus on working effectively with parents as soon as a child is accommodated to rehabilitate the child back home at the earliest opportunity and to return to court for revocation of care orders for children who have successfully returned to the care of their parents and have been home for an extended period of time.