REDCAR AND CLEVELAND ADULT DRUGS JOINT COMMISSIONING GROUP

Minutes of meeting held JUNE 11 th 2009

ATTENDED

Peter Price Director of Public Health PCT (Chair of JCG)

Viki Whelan Joint Commissioning Manager, R & C PCT

Helen Armstrong SCP Co-ordinator (Drugs)

John Liddell NTA Deputy Regional Manager

Susan Pashley Service Development Manager, R & C PCT

Terry Doyle Service User Co-ordinator

Ken McGladrie Local Authority Commissioning (Mental Health)

1. APOLOGIES:

Allia Hussain PCT Finance

John Stamp PCT Mental Health

Richard Parker Reducing Re-offending Manager

Pauline Lisle Supporting People

John Lambert Vulnerable children's manager

Russell Portues Assistant Director Probation

Mary Mohan Local Authority Commissioning (Mental Health)

2. MINUTES OF LAST MEETING

Agreed

3. MATTERS ARISING / ACTIONS UNDERTAKEN

No Matters arising.

4. TIER 4

SP tabled the following draft papers on Tier 4 provision.

SP explained that these papers had been drawn up by the Tees wide Tier 4 group for consideration within all the JCGs across Tees. This JCG being the first to consider them.

Within the criteria paper a number of areas were noted for consideration :

The group discussed these and agreed that our preference would be that any placement should be based on an initial 3 month basis with a review of progress and future funding following 3 month blocks of treatment.

The group felt that with regards to time limits between stays there should be no set length but should be reviewed on an individual basis

With regards to housing on release, the group felt that with integrated care planning with the care coordination team discharges should be planned and as part of this housing should be considered and addressed.

Further discussion took place around monitoring and the inclusion of monitoring successful abstinence and maintained scripting.

The group felt that a preferred provider list should generated which had a set criterion for being included on the list, with the allowance of spot purchasing where necessary and appropriate

Next steps

SP is attending a further meeting with the Tees Wide group tomorrow and will update the JCG in July.

SP to work with KMc to explore re instating the links with social care for community grant funding and financial assessments for rehabilitation places. In line with the rest of the Tees areas.

5. DENTAL HEALTH

SP tabled an update paper on Dental Health. She reported she had met with the PCT lead on dental health. It appears some work has been carried out in Stockton and Hartlepool and Kamani was keen to assist and undertake work across Tees that would give us some needs assessment information. The proposal is to provide a mobile dental facility across Tees for service users, this would allow the staff to assess the state of PDUs dental health and encourage PDUs to access community of mainstream services.

PP was keen that the focus would be on getting PDUs to access mainstream dental health in the future.

KMc mentioned the community based dental health team who provided a walk in centre and specifically worked with individuals from vulnerable backgrounds. This may be a route into dental treatment. SP to explore this and report back to next JCG.

SP is meeting with the Tier4 group and will request a meeting with the Tees wide counterparts to discuss this further and gauge costs and update the JCG next month. Any costs associated with this piece of work could be funded via the JCG under spend.

6. SERVICE USER / CARER UPDATE

Terry Doyle's service user and co-ordinator report was circulated with the agenda.

Further to the report TD added that discussions had taken place with CRI following Amanda Hancock's presentation to the JCG last month. CRI have said they would be able to reduce the accredited part of the course from a level 3 to a level 2. The content of the course would remain the same but the accreditation work would be less intensive for the participants and therefore less onerous.

PP was concerned that this may lower the calibre of participants and wanted assurance that there were robust assessment processes in place to ensure the calibre of participant was adequate to meet the needs of the tasks involved in mentoring. TD discussed this and assured PP that this was the case and gave examples of the assessment process. Amanda is due to report back to the group in Sept to update.

Per Temps have agreed to host the Helen Project worker post. VW to discuss with Per temps.

7. ALCOHOL CONSULTANCY

Following from last months paper VW circulate with the agenda a report and copies of the received quotes.

The expression was sent to 5 consultancy agencies all specialising in Alcohol matters.

Only 2 quotes were returned.

The 3 declines were due to consultant's lack of resources to cover this piece of work at this time.

QUOTE 1 - First consult. This bid came in at a cost £10,867.50 for 21 days work.

QUOTE 2 - Farrel Associates came in at a cost of £25,415 for 35 days work.

There are procurement issues in that if the costs are between £10,000 and 25,000 there needs to be 3 quotes sought. We can evidence that 5 were sought however only 2 returned. Due to the lack of available staff resource and timescales of the work required, the group agreed that we were not in a position to source further quotes.

Quote 2 came in above the £25,000 threshold therefore if this was to be our preferred provider we would need to negotiate the costs down to below this amount.

The third consideration is that it transpires that North Tees PCT is in legal dispute with First consult and therefore is there a conflict of interest in choosing this provider.

Following discussion it was agreed as the group was joint venture between the PCT and Local Authority, until the dispute was resolved and outcome noted there would be a conflict of interest at this time if we were to go with First consult. Therefore this bid would be disregarded.

Further discussion took place around the Farrel associates bid and the group agreed, that subject to satisfactory references and if the cost could be reduced to the around the £21,000 allocated for this piece of work we could commission them to do it.

VW to take up references and negotiate costs with Farrel associates. If they can be brought in line with the funding allocation the work could start.

A discussion took place regarding the imposition of Sanctions or Bonus payments. The group agreed that sanctions was the preferred route however there was an issue sanctioning at Quarter payment dates as the TOPs data was 2 months behind .

The group agreed to go ahead with the TOP audit as this would assist the partnership identify gaps in process and VW to explore ways in which the sanctions can be imposed.

TOP audit to be returned to Sept JCG when a decision would be taken

Updated plan tabled and agreed. No major exceptions reported

10. ASRO COSTS FOR DRR DEFERRED

Deferred until next JCG

11. INTENSIVE DIP STATUS

PCT and LSP have agreed funding this needs to go to GONE for approval. Once approved VW and Probation will look into recruitment and developing Intensive DIP in area.

DIP caseload - currently 140

dashboard target 2 85%

DRRs starts - TARGET 13 ACTUAL15

completions - TARGET 6 ACTUAL 6

Numbers in effective treatment

PDUs - 658

All Drug Users over 18 - 806

Retained more that 12 weeks - 90%

13. FINANCE

VW and PP informed the group that the finance situation was still unresolved. We had received notification that we had a 107K under spend. A final report will be tabled at the next JCG.

09/10 budget PCT allocations need to be ratified

14. AOB

BIG DRINK DEBATE

Questionnaires handed out

NTA CAPITAL FUNDING

Albert Centre interested in bidding

NEXT MEETING TO BE HELD AT 1pm LANGBAURGH HOUSE BOARD ROOM THURSDAY JULY 9^th 09