Presentation by Simon Morritt, Chief Executive, York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Minutes:
Considered a presentation by Simon Morritt, Chief Executive, York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Gary Hardcastle, Deputy Head of Business Intelligence, on local hospital travel and attendance data. Members were advised that this relatively new data tool for collecting information around patients who did not attend face to face outpatient hospital appointments provided very useful insights to help the Trust plan its services. The Trust as a whole performed well nationally (in the top decile) in relation to ‘do not attends’ (DNAs). The bulk of the presentation focused on nine east coast area postcodes and DNAs at Scarborough Hospital. Since April 2021 the DNA rate had shown a marked improvement which was attributed to the introduction of text messaging reminders to outpatients. The data could be further broken down by postcode sub-districts, Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) deciles and specialties. For local IMD 1 postcodes (in10% most deprived areas in the country) which had a higher rate of DNAs, the majority of these patients lived within three miles of Scarborough Hospital. This raised questions about whether there were other barriers than transport to consider such as communication and engagement methods. The service itself and how it was delivered may also be a factor.
Members then discussed the presentation requesting the local data for missed appointments at York Hospital and noting that within a single postcode or division there was sometimes a huge discrepancy in average life expectancy and deprivation.
In reply to questions and comments, Mr Morritt would feed back to the Integrated Care Board the inconvenience to patients of not being given precise times for telephone appointments since this often concerned GP appointments, and noted too that some hospital specialties were better than others in advising patients of the likely duration of their appointments and that it would be of great benefit for all outpatients to have this information beforehand.
In view of the complexity of the data and the factors that may deter an outpatient attending a hospital appointment, it was proposed to hold an informal seminar for members with Messrs Morritt and Hardcastle at which they could answer specific questions about particular localities, specialties and other issues in respect of local outpatient attendance at all the Trust’s hospitals of Scarborough, York, Malton, Bridlington and Selby. Asked if something similar could be held with Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust (for Whitby Hospital) and South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (for James Cook Hospital), the Chair undertook to look into this through the Principal Democratic Services Officer, Mr Harris, but there was no guarantee that these Trusts would collect this data in the same way.
At the request of Councillor Maw, Mr Morritt addressed the matter of the ongoing industrial action at Scarborough Hospital. The dispute centred on the workload of staff and the claimed degradation of service following the closure of the biomedical facility at Scarborough Hospital in 2022. Mr Morritt explained that one of the two laboratory floors at Scarborough Hospital was closed in 2022 on safety grounds after the discovery of RAAC concrete. Despite the closure of the floor, the Trust had maintained a microbiology service at the hospital with a consultant visit once a week and a microbiologist on call 24/7. Only the previous week, the Trust had received capital funding from NHS England to replace some of the building constructed of RAAC and to work up a plan to build a new laboratory facility on site. In terms of the industrial action, Mr Morritt advised that the Trust was working very constructively with ACAS to resolve the dispute and was hopeful of soon reaching an agreement including measures to support the workload of Scarborough Hospital staff. In reply, Councillor Maw alluded to complaints made by staff about lack of equipment including two autoclaves and the need for a larger cold room. Concerns had also been expressed about the time taken to transfer blood cultures from Scarborough to York and the potentially dangerous delay in investigating blood cultures showing positive, for example, for suspected cases of sepsis. Mr Morritt responded that he was not aware of any deterioration in quality of care arising from these changes in service but would provide a more detailed reply.
Resolved that:
i. the presentation be received; and
ii. an informal seminar for members be arranged with the Trust to explore the data tool in greater depth through councillors’ individual questions about hospital site, locality, specialty and other matters.