Report of the Interim Associate Director of Operations, Associate Director of Health Professionals and Quality and Associate Medical Director Manchester Care Group

The presentation provides the HOSC Subgroup with an update regarding the progress to date on the GMMH Improvement programme and in particularPatient Safety, Clinical Strategy and Professional Standards. Where possible the presentation focuses on the improvements made in Manchester services impacting on Manchester people. (Please note some actions are trust wide and not specific to Manchester)

In opening the meeting, the Chair welcomed all those present and described the context and rationale for the establishment of the Task and Finish Group by the Health Scrutiny Committee following the May 2023 meeting. The Chair commented that at the next meeting the report to be submitted would consider the themes of People and Culture. She noted that at the May 2023 meeting of Health Scrutiny Committee representatives from CHARM had attended and at that meeting the Trust had given an undertaking that they would actively engage with CHARM to address the specific concerns they had articulated. She requested that an update on these discussions be included in the report to be submitted to the January 2024 meeting.  

The Task and Finish Group then considered the report and accompanying presentation of the Interim Associate Director of Operations, Associate Director of Health Professionals and Quality and Associate Medical Director Manchester Care Group that provided an update regarding the progress to date on the Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust (GMMH) Improvement Programme, with specific reference to Patient Safety, Clinical Strategy and Professional Standards. Where possible the presentation focused on the improvements made in Manchester services impacting on Manchester people.

Key points and themes in the report included:

·         Providing a background and context to the Improvement Plan;

·         Providing an update on two of the key workstreams within the Improvement Plan linked to the improvements currently being undertaken by the Trust, namely Patient Safety along with Clinical Strategy and Professional Standards;

·         Discussion of progress to date and impact and challenges;

·         Information on the NHS England National Recovery Support and assessment of progress against the exit criteria; and

·         Consideration of the risks to delivering the Improvement Plan (noting that Risk Appetite was defined as the level of risk that an organisation was prepared to accept in pursuit of its objectives. It represents a balance between the potential benefits of innovation and the threats that change inevitably brings). 

Some of the key points that arose from the Task and Finish Group’s discussions were: 

·         Requesting that comparative data, including figures and as a percentile is provided when reporting progress against activities in future reports as this enabled the lay reader to measure progress;

·         Welcoming the 21% reduction in incidents related to smoking on Manchester sites since April 2023;

·         Information was sought regarding ligature audits;

·         Clarification was sought on the reported 10% reduction in the use of rapid tranquilisation across Manchester wards in October 23;

·         How many in-patients were there currently;

·         How many staff were there across the in-patient sites;

·         Discussing waiting times to access services;

·         The issue of staff recruitment and retention was important to the successful delivery of the Improvement Plan and noting the need to articulate improvements across the Trust to attract staff;

·         The need to ensure that appropriate staff were working during weekends and evenings to ensure safe staffing at all times;

·         The need to address previously identified bad practice such as incorrectly or falsely completing observation records;

·         Clarification was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 1.

Report of the Governance and Scrutiny Support Unit

Members are invited to review the Terms of Reference and agree the Work Programme of the Task and Finish Group.

The Task and Finish Group considered the terms of reference and future work programme and were invited to make any amendments.

Decision

To note and approve the work programme, noting the comments made during the previous agenda item.