Agenda item

To scrutinise and provide input to the proposed development of the service offer ahead of recommissioning in 2025.

The Director of Public Health noted that the budget for this service was almost half of the entire public health budget.  This was an opportunity to deliver against the ambition to provide the best start in life for people in West Northants. 

The Public Health Principal presented the report and stated that there was a public health duty to provide a health visiting and school nursing service.  The service was currently provided jointly with North Northamptonshire but from 2025 separate contracts would be in place.  The draft commissioning timeline as outlined in the report was shared.  There had been widespread consultation and roundtable workshops to inform the process. 

Councillors made the following comments: 

• School nursing teams were expressing concern over their jobs.  How was communication with staff and messaging to services being managed?  Support would need to be provided where needed. 
• Was consultation with families with children aged 0-5 with all families or a selection?  How would the selection process and consultation take place? 
• What sort of organisations might be looking to tender?  Could an in-house bid be requested? 
• It needed to be ensured that people did not slip through the net during the process of change. 
• Was the aim of offering a single contact number/booking for the REACH service too complicated? 
• How would children who were at risk in their own home from the effects of smoking/drug abuse be protected? 
• A staff voice was needed on the consultation – a people-first mindset. 
• The challenge of the relatively lesser need of the South Northants area affecting funding for the greater need in Northampton town needed to be addressed. 

The Director of Public Health and Public Health Principal responded as follows: 

• Work would be done with the provider from the start regarding appropriate communication with staff.  The roundtable would start that sort of consultation and inform the process going forward. 
• A consultation with surveys to parents and carers received more than 2500 responses and those groups would be engaged with to establish what was working well now, what were the challenges as service users and how the service could be designed to work well for them. 
• The majority of authorities had services provided by a health trust.  Some were in-house.  The most common would be through a health body, particularly for provision of clinical services. 
• Work was being done to ensure all services worked together and transitions were covered. 
• The specification for procurement was being looked at and all options would be considered. 
• There was an opportunity to understand need, and those who did not take up services which were offered.  Another challenge was the need to deliver services for a year whilst the new service was being designed and commissioned. 
• A service improvement plan was being looked at for REACH to consider how the service could be optimised in the best way for children not meeting the CAMHS threshold. 
• There would be high expectations on the provider to make a difference.  This was one of a number of big programmes of work orientated around having the best start in life. 

RESOLVED: that the Committee agreed to receive a further update on the 0-19 Health Visiting and School Nursing Service at the Committee meeting on 3 April 2024 before the procurement process commenced.