Issue - meetings

The Panel considered the report of the Scrutiny Manager which provided an update following engagement that enabled the Panel to formally respond to the proposals to redesign inpatient Older Persons Mental Health Services.

Councillor Barbour; James House, Managing Director, Southampton Place, Hampshire & Isle of Wight Integrated Care Board; Tom Westbury, Associate Director of Communications, Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust; Ron Shields, Chief Executive, Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust; and Councillor Fielker, Cabinet Member for Adults, Health, and Housing were in attendance and, with the consent of the Chair, addressed the meeting.

The Panel discussed a number of points including:

·  Originally there were 46 beds allocated for organic dementia patients across the county, but the service had not required more than 32 beds to be used at any one time.

·  For patients who had to be accommodated away from their home district arrangements are made to enable the family to travel to those wards to support their loved ones.

·  All affected staff would be redeployed, there were a number of vacancies across Mental Health Services in Southampton and across the county.

·  The proposals were developed by a working group that included patients’ families and carers as well as staff and managers.

·  The aspiration for the service was to focus on crisis intervention and wrap around care in the community to prevent a patients needs escalating to require hospital inpatient care.

·  The consultation also identified a need to improve access to information for families from the point of diagnosis and the service planned to continue to consult with families of dementia patients.

RESOLVED That the Panel’s response to the proposals to redesign inpatient older persons mental health services would be sent to Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust by the end of week commencing 23^rd October.