[Steve Sienkiewicz]

On the subject of OSC's (sorry - local authorities) right of referral to the SoS, the response paper states:

"In addition to being consulted on the designation of which services are subject to additional regulation, the local authority will be able to refer decisions about significant changes to any designated services to the Secretary of State".

Does this mean that only changes to DESIGNATED services will be able to be referred? i.e. those that will be protected against failure by Monitor).

Sorry if I'm missing something obvious but I've read through the wording several times (para's 5.39 - 5.41) and still can't be sure!

[embexGexart]

I also noticed those important words 'designated services' and took it to mean the same as Steve - that the referral power is restricted to those core services. If so, this is a significant restriction on the referral power of HOSCs/LAs. Perhaps this is an area for further lobbying?

However, a lot of the DH proposals around health scrutiny seem to have been aimed at reducing referrals (despite the fact that there haven't been many!). Now that separate health scrutiny is being retained, this apparent limitation plus the need for referrals to go through full council seems to be the new way of limiting referrals, or encouraging local resolution, to look at it in a different way!

[Denise Holden]

Steve Sienkiewicz Wrote:On the subject of OSC's (sorry - local authorities) right of referral to the SoS, the response paper states:

"In addition to being consulted on the designation of which services are subject to additional regulation, the local authority will be able to refer decisions about significant changes to any designated services to the Secretary of State".

Does this mean that only changes to DESIGNATED services will be able to be referred? i.e. those that will be protected against failure by Monitor).

Sorry if I'm missing something obvious but I've read through the wording several times (para's 5.39 - 5.41) and still can't be sure!

This is something that has been niggling me and would be useful to bottom out.
Looking at 6.115 to 6.119 the suggestion seems to be that only designated services would be open to referral. The last two bullet points in 6.117 puts the decision about significant service variation with Monitor and commissioners for designated services only- there is no reference to the role of the scrutiny function in this.

Services that are not designated can be ceased- subject only to contractual limitations. Although LAs would be able to 'require any provider of any NHS funded services to account to a scrutiny session'- designated or not- there does not seem to be the power of referral for non designated services. ....but then this may be my reading of this so more informed thoughts would be welcome.
I suspect the agility and nimbleness constantly referred to in the document will be just as important for us as this lot rolls out!

[Claire Lee]

Clearly it would be useful to clarify DH intentions here if possible!

(N.B. my earlier post was not on behalf of CfPS - I mistakenly used an old log in from when I was on a secondment. I now work at East Sussex CC)

[tim gilling]

As per a previous post, CfPS has identified 'reconfiguration' as an area for further lobbying. I suspect that colleagues views of the wording on 'designated services' are correct - but OSCs are likely to be involved in deciding what those services should be. The whole thrust of the Coalition reforms is to open up the way healthcare is provided, so in policy terms removing barriers to change is not unexpected.

Now that health scrutiny powers are being retained (in whatever form councils choose to exercisde them) we can move on to lobbying around those aspect that are still unclear/unhelpful.

Again, as per a previous post CfPS will be working with DH to bring together a range of OSCs and their local partners (Cabinet, GPs, Healthwatch) to help develop thinking in these areas.

More details as soon as we have them.

[tim gilling]

I did mean to add that in terms of 'local resolution', CfPS lobbied around the capacity of OSCs to resolve conflicts arising within Health and Well-being Boards about service changes (i.e where there is no apparent correlation between the commissioning plans of GP Consortia and health and well-being strategies). We are talking to DH about how CfPS can help support OSCs and partners with these kinds of 'conversations'.

Again, more when we have a clearer idea of how this might work.