Key messages from the Joint Committee of CCGs on 5th July

Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) are NHS organisations that plan and buy health and healthcare for their communities. The Joint Committee of Clinical Commissioning Groups (JCCCG) is a meeting of the CCGs in Lancashire and South Cumbria and will be responsible for making decisions about any future proposals referred to it by the CCGs. Decisions that will be referred if they require a Lancashire and South Cumbria approach, but most decisions about healthcare will continue to be taken locally.

The committee is held in public and chaired by Phil Watson CBE, who is independent of the health organisations. The key messages below are from the committee held on 5th July 2018 at 53 Degrees, University of Central Lancashire.

A glossary of terms which may support understanding the key messages below is available by clicking here

Pathology Update

Jean Wright, Project Director on Pathology Collaboration, provided an update on the pathology collaboration which included the key messages:

• We are planning to develop a collaborative pathology service across Lancashire and South Cumbria. The timetable for change sees full implementation by 2021 subject to approval of the relevant business cases of the Trust Board organisations involved. The development of a pathology collaboration supports the priorities of the integrated care system. The service will remain an NHS service delivered by NHS staff.
• We have involved staff including clinicians in meetings throughout the year to produce the plans for the service going forward, and staff update sessions for all staff are held on a monthly basis.
• As a diagnostic support service which is largely non patient facing, patients will not have to travel further or be affected adversely.
• The collaboration will ensure sustainability of the service and achieve value for money in terms of efficiencies.
• A larger, more sustainable service will be able to develop services to adopt the new technology that smaller services would be unable to do, such as technological advances using personal genomic profiles to make cancer treatments more effective.

Preparations for formal consultation

Gary Raphael, Executive Director for Finance and Estates, introduced a paper to update the Committee on the resources and expertise procured by Healthier Lancashire and South Cumbria to enable any up and coming formal consultations to be delivered to the standards required and expected by us, our partners and, most importantly, the public.

Given the urgent need to initiate necessary work now, it has been decided to buy-in the strategic and operational assistance required to deliver the results we need, alongside the development of our in-house capabilities to support a number of areas of work across Lancashire and South Cumbria including the Our Health Our Care programme and Stroke.

Digital Health

Declan Hadley, Digital Lead for Lancashire and South Cumbria, presented a summary of the Digital Strategy which is available to read here: www.healthierlsc.co.uk/digitalfuture. Key updates included:

• The way we manage our lives is changing. 86% of households now have internet access, 82% of people go online every day and 72% of adults use a smartphone.
• It is now time to embrace this rapidly increasing digitalised world and manage our own wellbeing, health and social care needs. With two thirds of visits to the NHS Choices website being on smartphones, there are clear indications that a majority of people are ready to go online to understand and manage their health and care needs.
• Healthier Lancashire and South Cumbria is home to a growing population of 1.7 million people. More of us are getting older and experiencing long-term health problems. Some of this disease could be avoided or the ill-effects slowed down, if we took positive action. Using digital is one approach to help address the challenges we all face.
• We know digital will not work for everybody. Some people struggle with computers and not everybody has access to the internet. For those who would like to use digital but cannot, our aim will be to find ways to help them get online. As our digital offer grows we hope people will find it easier and more convenient to use online services, but technology will never replace the care and compassion that comes from our dedicated workforce.

The 'Our Digital Future' Strategy outlines a number of shared principles for developing digital solutions between the partners of Healthier Lancashire and South Cumbria, which includes hospital trusts, NHS organisations and Local Authorities. These principles include:

• We will create digital solutions with the people who will be using them
• We will judge our progress against this digital strategy from the public’s perspective
• We will create an environment that empowers our frontline
• We will use data to prevent, predict and respond to ill-health
• We will work together to reduce complexity in order to improve quality and safety
• We will engage with academia, industry and others to accelerate innovation

Questions from members of the public

Members of the public in attendance were given the opportunity to ask questions which were responded to by the presenters and board members. Public in attendance were reminded that the drop-in sessions ahead of the meeting are an opportunity for members of the public to ask questions relating to items that are not on the Joint Committee of CCGs agenda.