Draft Minutes
Mental Health and Learning Disabilities Partnership Board
Monday 26th September 2016
10am until Midday
Folk Hall, New Earswick
Partnership Board
members &
substitutes
Guests
Apologies
Jess Haslam, Head of Disability & SEN, City of York Council [substitute for
Eoin Rush]
Adam Myers, Representative of Voluntary Sector Forum for Learning
Difficulties [Community Representative]
Alyson Scott, Chair of Voluntary sector Forum for Mental Health[Community
Representative] In the Chair
Ashley Brindly
David Cartwright – Community Base Day Service
Becca Cooper - People First
Tim Crossley – Café West
Eileen Dickinson - York Advocacy
Claire Dobson - People First
Jamie Edwards – York Advocacy
Hayley Fairburn – City of York Council
Sandra Gilpin – People First
Louise Hicken – York Mind
Hannah Higginson – City of York Council
Samuel Hinde – Community Base Day Service
Rose Kent – Accessible Arts & Media
Shaun Lavery - People First
Kate Longon - UBU
Maria Nicholson - Mencap
Andy Pollin - People First
Councillor Carol Runciman – Chair of Health and Wellbeing Board, City of
York Council
Phillip Scott – City of York Council
Ruth Walsh – City of York Council
Sarah Arnott, Commissioning & Partnership Manager, Office of the Police &
Crime Commissioner (North Yorkshire)
Nigel Ayre, Development Worker, York Mind, Service User Representative
Siân Balsom, Manager, Healthwatch York
Dr. Louise Barker, Clinical Lead for Mental Health, NHS Vale of York
Clinical Commissioning Group
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Councillor Jenny Brooks, Elected Representative
Nicola Cowley, Lead Nurse for Safeguarding Adults, York Teaching
Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Marion Gibbon, Consultant in Public Health, City of York Council
Paul Howatson, (Chair) Senior Innovation & Improvement Manager, NHS
Vale of York Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG)
Beverley Hunter, Partnership Commissioning Unit
Lynne James, Representative of Voluntary Sector Forum for Mental Health
[Community Representative]
Michael Melvin, Assistant Director Adult Social Care, City of York Council
Eoin Rush, Assistant Director, Children’s Specialist Services, City of York
Council
Inspector Bill Scott, Mental Health Lead, North Yorkshire Police
Catherine Surtees, Partnerships Manager, York CVS
Stephen Wright, Clinical Director for Adult Mental Health, Tees Esk & Wear
Valleys NHS Foundation Trust.
In Attendance and
presenters
Jo Blades - York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Becky Farthing – City of York Council
Claire Ramsay – York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Ramsay Taylor – United Response
Sarah Walker – Tees, Esk & Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust
Tracy Wallis – City of York Council/NHS Vale of York Clinical
Commissioning Group
Mike Wimmer – City of York Council
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No.
1.
Action Lead
Welcome and Introductions
Alyson Scott welcomed everyone to the meeting and explained that this
meeting of the Mental Health and Learning Disabilities Partnership Board was
learning disability focused.
She informed everyone that Paul Howatson, the chair of the Mental Health
and Learning Disabilities Partnership Board was unable to attend the meeting
and that she would be chairing on his behalf.
2.
Presentation from the Health Action Group
Sarah Walker, Interim Head of Service York and Selby, Tees Esk and Wear
Valleys NHS Foundation Trust and Becca Cooper from People First gave a
presentation on the work of the Health Action Group.
Sarah and Becca told everyone that Louise Hicken had stood down from co chairing the Health Action Group and thanked her for all her hard work over
the past years.
They said that the Health Action Group had started a long time ago and was
originally a sub-group of the Valuing People Partnership. The Group was cochaired by someone who did not work in health and a service user. It is a task
group that looks at ways of making health related issues better and meets six
times a year at Systems House. The Health Action Group has an action plan
of health related things that they think are important.
The Group had not been able to get enough people to attend recently to make
it quorate and needed more people with a learning disability to attend, more
service providers and more housing providers. Health was a very important
issue for people and it was not clear why people were not attending the Health
Action Group’s meetings.
When big events were organised such as the recent ‘Have Your Say’ day then
lots of people would attend.
The Health Action Group was keen to find out why people weren’t attending
their meetings, how they could encourage people to attend and how they
could reach more people.
The Chair of the meeting led a discussion and the following points were made:
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Health Action Group should meet in different places; they should go to
existing groups rather than asking people to go to them at Systems
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House
If they went to where the groups were meeting on different days of the
week they would access more people
There was a need to be flexible on when and how the Health action
Group met
For Example - to go to a meeting at Systems House on a specific day
and at a specific time many people with a learning disability would need
to book time off work
It was suggested that leaflets and information about the work of the
Health Action Group would be useful
It would be useful to have two or three key contacts in all organisations
Sometimes people with a learning disability were told they could not
attend a meeting as there was no staff to take them. People felt this
was wrong and that people should be able to attend if they wanted to
The Health Action Group could look at best practice in other areas to
see how similar groups worked
Consideration could be given to how the Health Action Group could
work better with the Partnership Board
The Health Action Group could look at ways of working with other
forums such as the Service Provider Forum and the CVS Forum for
Learning Difficulties
It would be useful if the Health Action Group could be clear at each
meeting what the topic being discussed was in advance so people
could plan questions. It was helpful when people asked questions at
meetings that these were answered as this didn’t always happen.
The Chair thanked Sarah and Becca for their presentation and everyone else
for being part of the discussion.
3.
Presentation from West Offices Café
Ramsay Taylor and Timothy Crossley gave a presentation about Café West.
Ramsay explained that United Response was a national charity and they ran
the café in West Offices. It was a training kitchen and café and those involved
had specific training plans and treated there time there as a proper job.
Other initiatives run by united Response were:
 Supported internships – this was being piloted in York and was a year
long placement which was made up of 3 days a week at work; one day
learning employability skills and another day focusing on maths and
English skills
 Health and Wellbeing Outreach – a one to one service to help People
With Support (PWS) access community events, develop social skills
and activities they enjoy.
 Media Group – a pilot for People With Support to learn skills from
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camera technique, sound recording skills, editing processes and
developing ideas into successful projects. It was hoped that his could,
in time, be developed into a social enterprise
Timothy Crossley, who works at Café West, talked about the kind of things that
happened during a working day at Café West. He said that he worked from
9am until 3.30pm and had to wear a uniform. He got his own locker and key, a
half hour lunch break and he worked on a rota basis sometimes in the kitchen,
sometimes on the till serving people and sometimes taking orders to people
sitting in the café.
The following questions were asked:
 Does anyone get bossy? Ramsay said that staff tried not to be bossy
when training but sometimes they had to
 Would the media group try to link with other similar groups in the area?
Ramsay suggested a conversation with the lead for the media group to
discuss this
 Some people asked about costs of the services and Ramsay explained
that job coaching was £16.50 per hour and a referral for training at Café
West was £8 per hour
 People asked whether you were paid to work at Cafe West. Ramsay
explained that it wasn’t a paid placement
4.
Introducing the new Learning Disabilities Nurse
Jo Blades introduced herself as the new Acute Learning Disability Liaison
Nurse. She worked at York Hospital, Scarborough Hospital, Bridlington
Hospital and Malton Hospital. She explained that her role was to make a stay
in hospital as easy as possible for people.
People at the meeting asked Jo the following questions:
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What happens if you have to go into hospital at a weekend? Jo said
that any information she had gathered about individuals, including their
likes and dislikes, would be accessible at the weekend. There was a
register that Jo could see as well and if she noticed that someone had
been admitted to hospital at a weekend she could visit them when she
returned to work.
The job covered four hospitals that were along way apart from each
other and people were concerned that more training needed to happen
with nurses in case Jo wasn’t available. Jo said that looking at how best
to ensure nurses were confident to care for people with a learning
disability would be part of her role
Do you still advocate the use of the ‘passport’ system which was very
helpful if someone was admitted in an emergency? Jo agreed that the
‘passport’ system was a really good idea; she also explained that she
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could visit people and gather more information about individuals which
could be shared with medical staff.
5.
Annual Health Checks
Officers from City of York Council gave an update on annual health checks for
people with a learning disability. All people with a learning disability should be
asked by their GP if they want to attend for an annual health check. However,
the scheme was not compulsory to sign up to.
There had been an increase on the number of people with a learning disability
having an annual health check from 343 in 2014 to 569 in 2015.
An easy to read letter for GPs to use had been developed and some people at
the meeting confirmed that they had received their invitation to their annual
health check in this format.
Comments on this item included:
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Letters received from the hospital were not always in an easy to read
format
Health Action Plans needed to be kept up to date
Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust have to ensure that
all people with a learning disability that are referred to them get a leaflet
telling them how to get an annual health check; they also have to ask
whether people have a Health Action Plan and if not whether they
would like one
It was agreed that the Health Action Group should do a more in depth piece of
work around annual health checks for those with a learning disability and
report back to the Mental Health and Learning Disabilities Partnership Board
with their findings, as well as ideas on how to get all sectors communicating in
a way that service users with a learning disability can understand.
6
Learning Disability Needs Assessment Work
The Health and Wellbeing Partnerships Co-ordinator handed out some
accessible copies of the Learning Disability Needs Assessment work which
had taken place over the past six to twelve months.
The full version of the Needs Assessment had been signed off by the Health
and Wellbeing Board. Inclusion North had been asked to write an accessible
version of this. People at the meeting were asked to consider the accessible
version either individually or in their next group meetings and to feed back to
the Health and Wellbeing Partnerships Co-ordinator by not later than 31st
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Health Action
Group
October 2016.
7
Close
The Chair thanked everyone for coming to the meeting.
Date of Next Meeting: Monday 28th November 2016 from 10am until 12 noon
at West Offices.
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