Agenda item - Chair's Communications

3.1       The Chair gave the following statement:

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to today’s meeting. 

There was a time, when the pandemic was at its peak, that I thought it would be too risky to convene a meeting just yet, and was reluctant to tear health professionals away from there vital work to focus on us , but thankfully Covid has been on the decline in Brighton and Hove in recent weeks, and I believe it is vital that we have the opportunity to look at how the pandemic has affected the city and the local response to

it.

So I am very grateful to HealthWatch and the CCG who have taken the time to prepare the presentations that we will be looking at later on, And world also like to welcome the members of the public who have joined us today to ask questions.

One thing that has become abundantly clear to us all is how much we value our frontline workers and all medical professionals. This pandemic has shed a stark light on how the NHS has been supported and funded in the past and how a decade of austerity has placed hospitals and social care perilously close to the wire. If there is one thing that is pulling us through this greatest health challenge for a century is the dedication of individuals, going way beyond the call of duty, and how they need to be fully supported both now and looking forward.

There are many lessons to be learned from the past few months and will be the subject of future reports for many months to come, as we look to recovery:  things we could have done differently, and examples of best practice we can share with others as we look to the future in terms of how well we are prepared should there be a second wave, and what plans are in place for any future pandemic.

It is also devastatingly clear that inequalities have been exposed and exacerbated by this pandemic. We need to scrutinise what we know about the impact of Covid-19 on our BAME communities, for example, and address how and why inequalities persist. We also need to consider the bereavement being felt by so many, the outbreak in our care homes – and the human impact this has all had.  It is important to say today that these topics and others will be the focus of future reports and presentations to this committee. We owe it to the memory of those who have died is to give attention to the lessons learned, and ways we can prevent such deaths happening again.

There were a number of reports that should have come to this committee both back in March and today, most notably Cancer care, hospital discharge and children’s mental health. All these and other outstanding reports will be coming to HOSC in due course, but as you can imagine, things have moved on so much just recently that all of them will have changed significantly since they were first mooted.

A couple of other things have emerged since we last met that I think Members will want to take a look at at later meetings. The first is the proposed merger of the Royal Sussex County Hospital with West Sussex, which has come as a surprise as there appears to have been no consultation with locally elected Councillors, and I will be asking the Chair of the Health and Wellbeing Board what conversations they have had with local NHS. 

The other, as members may have become aware, is that the Brighton and Hove CCG is one of 16 throughout the country to have been written to by NHS England for falsely claiming to have met its mental health investment standard, and I would anticipate that Members will want to explore this further.

Before we move on to the public questions and reports, I would just remind Members of my regular update meetings with Adam Doyle along with East and West Sussex. These present a chance for us to raise questions, and I would urge members of all parties to send these to myself and Giles in good time for answers to be prepared. As with the last meeting Giles will send you all a reminder note.

It’s difficult to predict how long we will be in session this afternoon, but I will be calling a break approximately every hour or when there is a natural time to do so.