Any correspondence, communication or other business brought forward by the direction of the Chairman of the Committee.
Minutes:
The committee Chairman, County Councillor John Ennis, welcomed everyone to the meeting.
County Councillor John Ennis reminded the committee that the meeting was being held informally and that any formal decisions would need to be taken in consultation with the Chief Executive Officer using his emergency powers.
County Councillor John Ennis read out the following statement so that the status of the meeting was clear to all involved and viewing:
You will have seen the statement on the Agenda front sheet about current decision-making arrangements within the Council, following the expiry of the legislation permitting remote committee meetings. I just want to remind everyone, for absolute clarity, that this is an informal meeting of the Committee Members. Any formal decisions required will be taken by the Chief Executive Officer under his emergency delegated decision-making powers after taking into account any of the views of the relevant Committee Members and all relevant information. This approach has been agreed by full Council and will be reviewed at its May 2022 meeting.
County Councillor John Ennis noted that this was the last meeting of the committee in this Council and reflected upon some of the significant and more sustained pieces of scrutiny work that the committee has undertaken over the past five years.
County Councillor John Ennis thanked committee members and officers for all of their support and also noted the contribution of County Councillor Jim Clark, who chaired the committee until May 2019.
County Councillor John Ennis summarised discussions at a recent meeting of the committee Mid Cycle Briefing that was held on 28 January 2022, where the focus was upon the development of the committee work programme, with a view to being able to handover a robust work programme for the committee members post the May elections.
At this point, County Councillor John Ennis asked Daniel Harry to read out a briefing note that had been received from Naomi Lonergan of the Tees Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust regarding the Esk ward at Cross Lane Hospital, Scarborough:
“There was a fire on Danby ward in January 2022 which had meant patients had to be moved to the empty Esk ward while major repairs take place on Danby ward. This is now almost completed, and patients will move back to Danby once this is complete and some planned anti-ligature work will commence on Esk ward, which is an essential part of improving safety on our wards.
We should be in a position to reopen the Esk ward by June 2022. To do this we have already recruited 7 nurses through our international recruitment programme to work in our Scarborough locality (inpatients) and are looking to recruit another 12. We have also put in place recruitment and retention premia across all our adult inpatient wards and are monitoring the benefit of these.
We have recruited a non -medical Approved clinician to support our medical workforce on Esk and Danby ward and we are recruiting to health care assistant roles in Scarborough. We are working to recruit a senior psychologist to work on Esk ward as well as a consultant psychiatrist and have reviewed all roles to improve how attractive they can be for candidates in the context of a very challenged workforce position across the region and nationally.”