Issue - meetings

To review a progress report from the Chief Executive of NHS Berkshire East on the Bracknell Healthspace.

The Chairman welcomed Dr Lise Llewellyn and Mary Purnell from NHS Berkshire East, the local Primary Care Trust (PCT) and Paul Rowley from Berkshire Shared Services and members of the Health Overview and Scrutiny Panel.

Dr Llewellyn reported that progress continued and, despite the news of the future demise of PCTs, NHS Berkshire East was still committed to continue the development of the Healthspace and was working with Dr William Tong, the local lead for practice based commissioning.  She advised that a paper on the detailed planning options would be submitted to the PCT Board next week for a decision. 

Dr Llewellyn suggested that, once this decision had been made, NHS Berkshire East would host an open forum for the plans to be viewed.  However, it would not be possible to submit the planning application to the Council until the application in respect of the Town Centre regeneration had been determined owing to a recent change in planning legislation.  This had been one of the reasons for the delay.

Arising from members’ questions to Dr Llewellyn –

• Useful meetings had been held with planning officers and all matters had been addressed.
• When asked about whether the current financial restraints could affect the provision of the Healthspace, she was confident that the Healthspace could be the answer to some of the financial problems by delivering more community services to Bracknell residents and therefore reducing hospital bed space requirements.
• She was satisfied that the space available within the Healthspace would be effectively used.
• The aim was to submit the planning application by October 2010 and to be operational by September to December 2012.
• GPs had also been frustrated by the delays and the PCT was looking to utilise some current buildings to introduce some local services prior to the new facility being available.  The Council would be consulted about these new services before they were launched.
• Health spending had been ‘ring fenced’ by the new government and therefore the scheme should not be in jeopardy.

Paul Rowley commented that, in relation to the demise of the PCT in 2013, it had health, asset management and estate strategies which were very locality focussed, had longevity and could be inherited by any organisation to deliver the services.

Mary Purnell referred to the striking degree of partnership working  between the Council and the PCT on this project.

The Chairman thanked Dr Llewellyn and her colleagues for coming to the meeting and clarifying the current situation and looked forward to meeting again to view the plans.

Having discussed the way forward, the Commission agreed that –

(i)                  the Working Group of the Health Overview and Scrutiny Panel which had reviewed the Bracknell Healthspace be reconvened primarily to view the plans, seek responses to outstanding queries and consider whether the report should be updated.