Agenda and minutes

To receive any apologies for absence from Councillors.

Apologies had been received from Cllrs Jackie Edwards, Judy Richardson and Duane Farr.  Cllr Joe Salmon attended remotely thereby being unable to vote on any matters arising.

To receive information on any changes in the membership of the Committee.

Note – When a member of a Committee is unable to attend a meeting of a Committee or Sub-Committee, the relevant Political Group Leader (or their nominated representative) may, by notice to the Monitoring Officer (or their nominated representative) prior to the meeting, appoint a substitute member from within the same Political Group. The contact details on the front of this agenda should be used for notifications.

Cllr Cameron Adams substituted for Cllr Duane Farr on this occasion.

Councillors are requested to declare any interests on items included in this agenda. Please refer to the workflow on the preceding page for guidance.

Declarations received will be reported at the meeting.

Cllr Sharon Carr-Brown declared a personal interest as her husband was a non-executive director on Integrated Care Board for the Dorset area and as a support worker for an autistic man who was in receipt of direct payments from BCP Council, Cllr Joe Salmon declared a personal interest as an employee of Dorset Healthcare and a member of Unison and Cllr Hazel Allen declared a personal interest as an employee of University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust.

To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on 25 September 2023.

The minutes of the meeting held on 25 September 2023 were confirmed as an accurate record and signed by the Chair.

To consider any outstanding actions.

The Committee had no comments on the action sheet.

To receive any public questions, statements or petitions submitted in accordance with the Constitution. Further information on the requirements for submitting these is available to view at the following link:-

https://democracy.bcpcouncil.gov.uk/documents/s2305/Public%20Items%20-%20Meeting%20Procedure%20Rules.pdf 

The deadline for the submission of public questions is 3 clear working days before the meeting.

The deadline for the submission of a statement is midday the working day before the meeting.

The deadline for the submission of a petition is 10 working days before the meeting.

There were no public issues received on this occasion.

It is a statutory requirement for the DBCP Safeguarding Adults Boards (SAB) to publish an Annual Report each year and to present that report to the Council’s Health & Wellbeing Board.  Many Councils also request that the report is presented to Scrutiny as the report enables a discussion on the work of the Safeguarding Adults Board.

The attached report is for the year April 2022 to March 2023.The report was agreed at the September meeting of the Safeguarding Adults Boards (SABs).

The DBCP Boards have successfully worked together with joint meetings over the year

One Annual Report for both Dorset and BCP SABs has been published. Throughout this year we have delivered against all of our priorities which are set out in the annual work plan; this Annual Report summarises what the Board has achieved.

The Independent Chair of the Dorset and BCP Safeguarding Adults Board presented a report and presentation, a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and a copy of which appears as Appendix 'A' to these Minutes in the Minute Book.

It was a statutory requirement for the DBCP Safeguarding Adults Boards (SAB) to publish an Annual Report each year and to present that report to the Council’s Health & Wellbeing Board.  Many Councils also requested that the report was presented to Scrutiny, as the report enabled a discussion on the work of the Safeguarding Adults Board.

The attached report was for the year April 2022 to March 2023. The report was agreed at the September meeting of the Safeguarding Adults Boards (SABs).  The DBCP Boards had successfully worked together with joint meetings over the year. One Annual Report for both Dorset and BCP SABs had been published. Throughout this year the Board had delivered against all its priorities which were set out in the annual work plan; this Annual Report summarised what the Board has achieved.

The Committee discussed the report and presentation, and comments were made, including:

• In response to a query regarding the differences in data being collected by BCP and Dorset, the Committee was advised of that it was difficult to compare local authorities data and the reasons for this were outlined including, the different arrangements at the front doors of the services.  It was also highlighted that Dorset and BCP had very different demographics which meant benchmarking them against each other was not beneficial
• The Committee was advised of the process used by the service once it received a safeguarding concern and the breakdown of primary support reasons provided during the last quarter.
• The Committee was advised of the importance of transitional safeguarding, what that entailed and how it was managed when a safeguarding concern was referred.
• In response to a concern that the BCP data did not include a self category, the Committee was advised it was included under the neglect data and the work being done in that area was highlighted.
• The Chair of the SAB advised that next year she would ensure the data for self neglect would be separately accounted for. ACTION.
• Following another query regarding the differences in the data provided, the Committee was advised that the SAB did not have its own data analysts and used data provided from Dorset and BCP Council.
• The Chair of the SAB welcomed any further consideration from the Committee about how they would like to see the data presented and broken down in the next Annual Report.  ACTION.
• Following further concern about the differences in data, the Chair of the SAB stressed that what was important was the Boards worked with local analysts to make sure it scrutinised the data through its Quality Assurance Subgroup and identified areas where more in-depth auditing was required to understand what was going on locally.
• In response to a query, the Committee was advised there had  ...  view the full minutes text for item 34.

Adult Social Care has a statutory responsibility to produce an annual report on complaints received, issues that have been raised and any action that has been taken to improve services.

This report provides a summary of complaints and compliments, including learning, for BCP Council Adult Social Care from 1^st April 2022 to 31^st March 2023.

The Head of Transformation and Integration presented a report, a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and a copy of which appears as Appendix 'B' to these Minutes in the Minute Book.

Adult Social Care had a statutory responsibility to produce an annual report on complaints received, issues that had been raised and any action that had been taken to improve services.

The report provided a summary of complaints and compliments, including learning, for BCP Council Adult Social Care from 1^st April 2022 to 31^st March 2023.

The Committee discussed the report and comments were made, including:

• In response to a query from the Chair regarding the Executive Performance and Quality Improvement Board and the data considered, the Committee was advised of the data set used
• A Committee Member congratulated the team and felt that the majority of complaints came from a misunderstanding about what an individual may or may not be entitled to and that an increase in communication around that, may reduce complaints.
• The Director of Adult Social Care advised that the core data used could be shared with the Committee, but it needed to be confidential. ACTION.

RESOLVED that the Committee:

i) consider and scrutinise the information contained in

this report.

ii) consider any actions or issues for inclusion in the

forward plan.

Over recent years there has been a steady fall in the number of patients in Dorset who have been able to access an NHS dentist.  The total number of adults seeing an NHS dentist in Dorset has decreased from 265,915 (42.0% of the population) in June 2021 to 231,948 (36.6% of the population) in June 2022.  This is a drop of 33,967 patients (5.4%) over this period. 

As at July 2023 there are 109 High Street Dental Contracts - these are in practices in Dorset who provide general dental services.  In 2022/23, NHS England (NHSE) commissioned 1,224,386 Units of Dental Activity (UDAs) from providers.  This figure has reduced from the previous year as a result of a number of recurrent and non-recurrent reductions which were made to contracts at the request of providers due largely to the number of vacancies for dentists in practices across the county. 

A key factor affecting access to NHS dentistry is workforce.  The lack of dentists in the area undermines the ability of High Street practices to meet their contracts.

The South West Dental Reform Programme was established in 2020 to improve access to oral health services, develop workforce initiatives to improve recruitment and retention of the dental workforce, and improve the oral health of the population.  The programme is run by NHSE and Health Education England, alongside our strategic Integrated Care Partnerships and Local Authority Public Health leads to bring together the NHSE Dental Commissioning Team and Transformation Team with key stakeholders with responsibility for oral health in the region (Public Health England, Health Education England, Local Dental Committees, the Local Dental Network, and Integrated Care System (ICS) representatives) as well as public and patient voice partners.  The purpose of the programme is to inform a roadmap/plan for the future of NHS dental services and oral health improvement in the South West.

Access to NHS dentistry in Dorset remains challenging.  Dorset ICB is working with local and regional Clinical and professional Dental leads to try and improve the situation for residents; engaging local dental clinicians, their representatives and partners, as well as Healthwatch, as part of the wider South West Dental Reform programme, to offer practical support to enable dental practices to take on more NHS dentistry in the area.

The Deputy Director Strategic Commissioning, NHS Dorset presented a report, a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and a copy of which appears as Appendix 'C' to these Minutes in the Minute Book.

Over recent years there had been a steady fall in the number of patients in Dorset who had been able to access an NHS dentist.  The total number of adults seeing an NHS dentist in Dorset has decreased from 265,915 (42.0% of the population) in June 2021 to 231,948 (36.6% of the population) in June 2022.  This was a drop of 33,967 patients (5.4%) over this period. 

As at July 2023 there were 109 High Street Dental Contracts - these were in practices in Dorset who provided general dental services.  In 2022/23, NHS England (NHSE) commissioned 1,224,386 Units of Dental Activity (UDAs) from providers.  This figure had reduced from the previous year as a result of a number of recurrent and non-recurrent reductions which were made to contracts at the request of providers, due largely to the number of vacancies for dentists in practices across the county. 

A key factor affecting access to NHS dentistry was workforce.  The lack of dentists in the area undermined the ability of High Street practices to meet their contracts.

The South West Dental Reform Programme was established in 2020 to improve access to oral health services, develop workforce initiatives to improve recruitment and retention of the dental workforce, and improve the oral health of the population.  The programme was run by NHSE and Health Education England, alongside the Integrated Care Partnerships and Local Authority Public Health leads to bring together the NHSE Dental Commissioning Team and Transformation Team with key stakeholders with responsibility for oral health in the region (Public Health England, Health Education England, Local Dental Committees, the Local Dental Network, and Integrated Care System (ICS) representatives) as well as public and patient voice partners.  The purpose of the programme was to inform a roadmap/plan for the future of NHS dental services and oral health improvement in the South West.

Access to NHS dentistry in Dorset remained challenging.  Dorset ICB was working with local and regional Clinical and professional Dental leads to try and improve the situation for residents; engaging local dental clinicians, their representatives and partners, as well as Healthwatch, as part of the wider South West Dental Reform programme, to offer practical support to enable dental practices to take on more NHS dentistry in the area.

The Manager of Healthwatch Dorset gave a short presentation which detailed the work they had undertaken regarding the lack of access to NHS dentistry in Dorset.

The Committee discussed the report and comments were made, including:

• In response to a query, the Committee was advised that dentists across Dorset were passionate about providing dental care on the NHS and were very concerned about the challenge in meeting the local populations dentistry needs.  It was also highlighted that the Government was in discussions with dentists about dental reform and the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 36.

To receive a verbal update from the Portfolio Holder for Wellbeing.

The Portfolio Holder for Health and Wellbeing provided a verbal update of what he had been doing since the last meeting, which included:

• Attending the Integrated Care Partnership Board considering the health priorities across Dorset and BCP
• A lot of time spent on budget meetings to try and balance the gap in the budget and highlighted some of the difficulties and challenges faced
• The ongoing work for the Day Opportunities Strategy and the current consultation around that
• Will be attending the National Children's and Adult Social Services Conference at the BIC, organised by the LGA and that some of BCP Officers would be giving a presentation regarding preparing young people and families for adulthood.

The Chair advised that the presentation to the Conference would be coming to the Committee in the new year.

To seek nominations for the upcoming Task and Finish Group to consider data.

The Chair advised the Committee of the proposed date for the task and finish group to consider data and requested nominations be emailed to him copying in Democratic Services.

The Health and Adult Social Care Overview and Scrutiny (O&S) Committee is asked to consider and identify work priorities for publication in a Forward Plan.

There was no discussion regarding the Forward Plan.

To note the dates of the future meetings as follows:

·       15 January 2024

·       4 March 2024

All with a 6pm start, venues to be confirmed.

The dates of the future meetings were noted.