This is my quick feedback on my attendance at this meeting. Please contact me mark@cambridgecvs.org.uk for more info.
Date of meeting – Thursday 23 March 2017
Papers available from here
Just a few thoughts on some of the agenda items
Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment.
The latest report can be found on the Cambridgeshire Insight webpage. In essence this states that the county is well placed for pharmacies but recognises the growth and change in demographics that is expected over coming years.
There is a consultation to get people’s views of the report and to asses if anything has been missed. You have until the end of April 2017 to have your say here.
One of the key issues raised was the access to pharmacy services for new communities. There is often an issue that those that move in early have to travel long distances to access facilities as there is no commercial value in opening earlier. This has to be addressed, especially given the high level of need that often exist in developing communities.
Report on Cambridgeshire Health Committee
The papers for the latest meeting from the 16th march can be found here.
The big area of discussion was the proposal to move the Out of Hours service from Chesterton to Addenbrooks (this was passed by the committee in their scrutiny role).
Serious concerns were raised by staff from the City and also from Healthwatch about how the consultation had been conducted and about whether a thorough equalities impact assessment had been carried out. General feeling was that there were concerns that health inequalities will be increased by this move and that it impacts on much wider areas than just those living in North Cambridge.
Healthwatch was clear they will be involved in making the move as smooth as possible for users and the CCG have agreed to look at extended Dr Surgery opening hours. It was felt that this was not enough and the chair agreed to contact the CCG to express the concerns raised.
There was also discussion about air quality as Cambridge is an area of concern with it being designated as an Air Quality Management Area. The good news that the City had succeeded in winning significant government and other funding to put in electric charging points for taxis. Read more here. The plan is move more taxis to electric or hybrid once the points are in place. After busses taxis are the worst polluters in the City.
Update on the Health and Wellbeing Board
The papers for this can be found here. The next meeting is the 30th March.
The voluntary sector are represented by Julie Farrow from Hunts Forum.
Advice on Prescription Project – led by Cambridge CAB
A detailed report was given on the project to date .
This has proved very popular with clients as well as with the doctors and other surgery staff. CAB are rolling it out to other areas and looking at how they can grow their outreach.
This is a great example of how VCS and statutory and health sectors can work together to deliver benefits all round.
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