CCG Celebrates ‘Good’ Rating At Annual General Meeting

In this, the 70th year of our NHS, NHS East Riding of Yorkshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) held its fifth annual general meeting (AGM).

There was a fantastic turnout with around 70 people attending from members of the public, staff, councillors, voluntary and community services and provider services.

Jane Hawkard, Chief Officer, presented a number of the CCG’s achievements during 2017-18 which have all contributed to the CCG receiving an improved overall rating from NHS England as ‘Good’.

Jane said, “The meeting last night was really well attended by partners, staff and the local public, I would like to thank everybody who came. It is always a pleasure to meet with our local population and I am grateful of the opportunity to share some of our highlights from the previous year.”

“We presented with our colleagues and partners, showcasing social prescribing, primary care and the mobilisation of urgent care services, which are just some of our key projects.”

Natalie Belt, Service Manager at Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust discussed Social Prescribing, a way for frontline healthcare professionals, including GPs, to refer patients to a Community Link Worker for advice, help and support in dealing with non-medical issues, reducing the impact on GP services.

Dr Tom Milligan, local GP and GP Primary Care Lead for the CCG delivered a presentation on some of the projects taking place in Primary Care, including Active Signposting. Active Signposting ‘Get Help Sooner’ is a new approach coming to the East Riding in October which will see trained reception staff in GP surgeries offer patients the choice to access the most appropriate services without an initial appointment with a GP, such as physiotherapy, mental health, pharmacy and dental services. Another area of focus in Primary Care is the workforce, and Dr Milligan explained how the East Riding will benefit from 12 GPs through an international recruitment project.

A presentation on the mobilisation of new urgent care services, which were introduced earlier this year, was led by CCG Medical Advisor and GP, Dr Craig Dobson. The CCG revealed that around 17,500 patients accessed these new services during April, May and June 2018. During the same period over 17,000 calls dealt with by NHS111 for patients in the East Riding getting people to the right service, with 965 of those directed to urgent care services.

This was the last AGM for CCG Chair, Dr Gina Palumbo, who will step down from the role at the end of this year. Dr Palumbo gave her thoughts on the future of the NHS, both locally and nationally, with a focus on self care, resilience, prevention and integration.

The CCGs financial performance was also on the agenda, with Chief Finance Officer, Richard Dodson explaining that the CCG managed to achieve its financial plan for the year and detailing how the budget of £397 million was spent.

Finally, the meeting ended with a lively question and answers session, with a number of questions gathered beforehand as well as some asked from attendees too. All of the questions and answers, along with the presentations are available of the CCG’s website at www.eastridingofyorkshireccg.nhs.uk/agm.