Agenda item - Minutes

To consider (a) the minutes of the last meeting held on 19 June 2012 and (b) matters arising from the minutes.

66.1    The minutes were approved from the 19 July 2012.

66.2    Matters arising: members were still interested in receiving an update from Community Safety, in particular about cold-calling.

66.3The Chair asked for an update from partners:

(1)       Pensioner Action , Sue Howley’s update included:

·                     People’s Day was a success and used as an opportunity to extend the distribution of the Pensioner magazine, which was written by older people.

·                     The magazine was used to promote the improvement of GP services campaign. There were an unexpected large number of responses received by post even though postage was not supplied.

·                     At the Patient Participation Group (PPG) meeting on GP surgeries many concerns were raised. The aim of the meeting was for older people to influence the recommendations made. Pensioner Action would be taking forward the issues raised from the meeting.

·                     Another concern raised was from older carers and the 15 minutes allocated time for assisting patients. It was felt that the time was too limited to have any impact on the patient.

·                     Members noted that the PPG was compulsory and set up costs were £500. There were a variation of meetings ie. once a month to every 6 months, a wide range of people attended and there were many national guidelines which seemed to complicate matters for the PPG. 

·                     The Primary Care Trust’s (PCT) funding would cease for Pensioner Action, it was more than likely that funding would be extended by 3-6 months. There was a strong possibility that the organisation would continue through the pooling of budgets

(2)       Age UK, Mehvish Durrani’s update included:

·                     Kat Pearce was job sharing as interim of Chief Executive Age UK, Brighton-Hove.

·                     Funding cuts of £30k had meant that there were redundancies. The charity was carrying out a financial analysis of its services and funding streams. It was understood that the charity shops were managed by a separate national company.

·                     Promoting the marathon to raise funds for the charity.

·                     Feedback from the OPC was whether leaflets supplied by the charity were useful to customers.

·                     Further clarification was needed on the agenda for the Age UK AGM.