Agenda item

Your Care Your Way Update - Health and Social Care Community Services : 100 Day Report

This report provides an evaluation of the ‘First 100 Days’ of the Virgin Care contract, which started on April 1st 2017.

Minutes:

The YCYW Community Services Programme Lead introduced this item to the Select Committee. She stated they were confident that the process had gone well in the majority of areas. She said that Virgin Care are now operating under as business as usual state. She asked for the Select Committee to consider what future reporting process it would like to establish.

 

Jayne Carroll, Virgin Care highlighted some of the key issues that had been identified since the beginning of the contract.

 

Staff Pay

 

During the first pay run following the transfer in April Virgin Care reported that all 1,300 colleagues who had transferred were paid successfully with only a few issues raised.


During the May pay run the vast majority of colleagues received salary payments in full but a proportion of Virgin Care colleagues, those who received increments or who were undertaking additional, hourly-paid work experienced an issue with their pay. Virgin Care took immediate action to swiftly resolve these issues.

 

Virgin Care reports that the most recent pay run in June was successful and no further issues are anticipated.

 

Bank Staff

 

At the time of transfer it was not possible to migrate the Bank Solution from Sirona Care and Health to Virgin Care, it was recognised that there was a risk to both operational safety and agency costs on an ongoing basis.

 

Virgin Care undertook a proactive campaign to recruit bank staff and this has resulted in 250 members joining the bank and Virgin Care are undertaking a number of actions to support this; to continue the successful recruitment campaigns, to put in some additional resource to support bank allocation and additionally to implement a new IT software package for arranging and booking bank so staff find it easier to identify and post shifts they need to fill via bank.

 

Virtual Desktop and Network Roll Out

 

As part of its 100 day plan, Virgin Care has undertaken a complete replacement of the IT infrastructure used by the services they deliver. This project lays the foundations for the delivery of the new services and the transformation planned for the future, but was also driven by necessity as Virgin Care were only able to use the existing IT network for 100 days after transfer.

 

This large scale project required all devices and networking equipment to be replaced across 32 sites in Bath and North East Somerset by 1 July 2017 with all colleagues provided with new equipment and access details for both IT and telephony. 

 

As would be expected with any project of this scale, users reported some issues and these were logged and resolved or mitigated in line with the project plan. As the new system was rolled out to more users, the number of issues being raised increased but Virgin Care continued to mitigate and resolve issues so that services were able to continue to operate, making use of business continuity plans wherever necessary.

 

On 3 July 2017, Virgin Care took the precaution of enacting their Internal Major Incident Plan, providing a formal framework and allowing additional resource to be diverted to support the operation of frontline services. Virgin Care also liaised with commissioners, the CQC and other local providers to ensure the system was aware that services were operating business continuity plans and were aware of the actions being taken.

 

GP Practice System Configuration

 

As a result of the new network roll out Virgin Care have reported a localised issue with how Community Matrons access the GP records system (SystmOne).  This is primarily linked to Virgin Care’s requirement to continue to operate within nationally prescribed Information Governance regulations.  For an interim period of 5 days there were a small number of Nursing Staff who could only access GP systems from another GP site, not the newly networked sites.  Access to information was possible, but not at these staff bases.  Access has been restored at the newly networked sites to ensure the necessary information is available to the nursing teams directly affected.

 

Early areas of service redesign

 

A key service review of future Community Mental Health Services arrangements has been launched and engagement on this is currently underway. Partnership working between the Council, CCG and Virgin Care and other key partners has been strong around this review.

 

Virgin Care has urgently prioritised Home First. This has included working closely with the RUH to ensure that people are discharged from hospital and assessed at home wherever possible. Significant progress has been made in ensuring that these pathways are established across the community and that acute and community colleagues are working jointly to ensure safe handovers are in place.

 

A review of Continuing Health Care processes was requested urgently by Commissioners and Virgin Care has undertaken this within the 100 days and has developed an action plan for improvement.  This development work will be jointly led across the CCG & Virgin Care teams to ensure a single, coherent approach is achieved.

 

Mike MacCallam, Chair of the Safe Transfer Group said that staff have welcomed the mobile working functionality that Virgin Care have introduced. He added that he has been impressed with their openness and transparency, their ability to provide quick solutions when problems are raised and willingness to work with other partners.

 

He stated that he was confident that safe transfer had occurred and that strong governance arrangements were in place regarding the contract agreed with Virgin Care.

 

The Chair asked if the teething problems that occurred affected mainly staff or service users.

 

The YCYW Community Services Programme Lead replied that the frustrations from staff were mainly due to IT problems. She added that only a small number of patient appointments had to be amended.

 

Jayne Carroll added that she understood the frustrations that had been raised by colleagues. She said that the printer configuration had been acknowledged as an error made by the suppliers and praised IT support in general as amazing, with all major issues now having been addressed.

 

She stated that Virgin Care only had access to the previous system run by Sirona until the end of June which was why they had undertaken the complete replacement of the IT infrastructure.

 

Councillor Lizzie Gladwyn asked if there was to be any patient experience feedback carried out.

 

Jayne Carroll replied that there would be and that they are in dialogue with the RUH on their experience.

 

Councillor Tim Ball asked for further clarification of the pay issues that had occurred, particularly in relation to bank staff.

 

Jayne Carroll replied that contact numbers were immediately made available to colleagues and emergency payments were made where necessary.

 

Councillor Lin Patterson asked for the costs associated with the IT infrastructure replacement and whether it was within budget.

 

Jayne Carroll replied that she did not have the exact figures to hand but assured the Select Committee that it was not over the budget level that they had set for the project.

 

Councillor Lin Patterson commented that she was pleased to see a number of reviews were planned and asked for any further information relating to the Continuing Health Care action plan for improvement and the review of future Community Mental Health Services.

 

Jayne Carroll replied that a joint action plan has been agreed between the CCG & Virgin Care in relation to Continuing Health Care and that improvements were already being recognised.

 

The YCYW Community Services Programme Lead added that staff have given themselves a two year window to carry out the review of future Community Mental Health Services. She added that it was hoped that in September 2017 they would be able to present the outcomes of the strategy engagement and that by April 2018 the shape of the model would be identified. She added that AWP and the voluntary sector will be involved in the process.

 

Councillor Tim Ball proposed that the Select Committee receives quarterly updates on this work area as a whole.

 

Councillor Lin Patterson requested that the Select Committee receives the Community Mental Health Services update in September.

 

The Director for Integrated Health & Care Commissioning replied that she would discuss that issue further with the officer concerned.

 

The Select Committee RESOLVED to;

 

(i)  Note the progress made during the First 100 Days

(ii)  Receive quarterly updates on this work area.

Supporting documents: