Mathew Mead welcomed everyone to the meeting

Apologies were received from Councillor Barry Bennion, Councillor David Nunn and Councillor Patrick Siese, with Councillor Roy Griffiths substituting.

Members are reminded that they must not participate in the discussion or voting on any matter in which they have a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest and should leave the room prior to the commencement of the debate.

Members were reminded that they must not participate in the discussion or voting on any matter in which they have a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest and should leave the room prior to the commencement of the debate.

To confirm the notes of the meeting held on the 31 July 2014.

The minutes were agreed as a correct record of the previous LJC on 31^st July, and the Chairman signed the minutes.

Neil Willcox, Shropshire Council’s Locality Commissioning Manager to provide an update on Shrewsbury boundary changes and future role of Local Commissioning

Mathew Mead introduced Neil and recapped the reasons behind needing to change the boundaries of the Local Joint Committees (LJC’s) in the Shrewsbury area. Currently there are 4 rural and 6 urban Local Joint Committees, and due to reductions in staff at the Council, together with a need to alter the way LJC’s operate these needed to be reduced down to 3 Rural LJC’s and 1 urban LJC for Shrewsbury.

Discussions had taken place with the Shropshire Councillors for the area, and Parish Councils and a number of options had been discussed, with the option of creating an East/West split of the rural LJC’s being the preferred option of the Shropshire Councillors.

This would see Councillor David Roberts electoral division of Loton (Westbury, Alberbury, Great Ness and Little Ness and Montford) join the existing Longden Ford and Rea Valley LJC to form the Loton, Longden, Ford and Rea Valley LJC

Councillor John Everalls electoral division on Tern (Bomere Heath, Bicton, Astley, Upton Magna, Uffington and Withington) join with the Severn Valley electoral division to form a new Tern and Severn Valley LJC. A map of the proposed areas was shown.

The basis behind the new areas was that:

Each Shropshire Councillor division should not be split between two LJC’s

There should be approximately the same population within each LJC area

There should be some similarities of geography and interests between communities in each LJC

However both Shropshire Councillors and officers acknowledged that the proposed new LJC areas were not perfect and had to be a compromise of a number of different issues. The concerns of Bomere Heath, Bicton and Great Ness and Little Ness Parishes had been raised in the consultation process and were acknowledged as being significant issues in the new LJC boundaries.

Neil went on to talk more about the new role proposed for Local Joint Committees. Rather than simply being a forum where issues were discussed the new LJC’s would play a role in the devolving of decision making and resources to a more local level.

Local Joint Committee’s would take a role in identifying the local needs within their area, and start to allocate resources to tackle these issues. The first of these areas of work would be youth services. Less youth activity would be delivered directly by Shropshire Council, but it would instead commission community led organisations to deliver services that met identified needs of young people.  LJC’s would help identify these issues and discuss how best to tackle the issue, with the Community Enablement Officers and Councils Commissioning team then helping the LJC’s to commission the new services. The town and parish Councils on the LJC would not be employing staff directly, this would still be done through Shropshire Council.

Committee members gave their initial views on the proposals.

Councillors from the Loton division said they could see the thinking behind linking them with the Longden, Ford and Rea Valley LJC, as they perhaps looked more to Pontesbury and Minsterley for some of their  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

To receive an update from Dr Caron Morton (CCG) about the Future Fit hospital consultations.

Paul thanked the Committee for its invitation to speak to them and gave a brief back ground on the Future Fit programme. It was based in the assumption that hospital services needed to change if they were to meet the changing needs of the population in the 21^st century, whilst also meeting the budgetary restrictions placed on the health service. Some of the key issues it addressed were people living longer, with life long illness; the need to provide top quality care for people suffering trauma injuries or illness; and to reduce illness caused by obesity, smoking and diet.

Future Fit looked at how services could be offered in Shropshire and Telford and Wrekin, and included emergency care, long term care and also preventative care. The long list of proposals looked at how urgent care, planned care and community based services could be delivered.

Clinically hosting emergency care (A&E) at one centre provided the best care, and allowed the service to recruit the best staff and offer the best service. This could be located at Shrewsbury; Telford or possible a new site in between the two towns. Urgent care centres for less serious emergency care cases could be located in both Shrewsbury and Telford, as well as between 2 and 5 other locations in the county.

The Future Fit programme also suggested setting up a separate planned care unit, where planned operations could take place. By separating this from the A&E unit the quality of service would improve and appointments wouldn’t be cancelled as doctors wouldn’t be diverted to deal with emergencies.

However the location of the emergency care unit was a very difficult issue to resolve. Hosting the service at Shrewsbury would make it easier to access for people from South Shropshire and mid Wales; but there was a higher population in Telford so it also made sense to locate it where there were more people.

Paul stressed that every service currently available in the county would remain in the new proposals. Some major trauma cases will go to Stoke, Birmingham or Wolverhampton, as they do now – but the number of patients that have to have this level of care are very small.

A long list of options for the future of hospital services in Shropshire has been drawn up, and these would be reduced down to a short list of 3-4 which would be consulted on again at the start of 2015. Any proposals were based on the service not receiving any more government funding, so if new sites were built they would have to be funded by cost savings from other areas. However purpose built sites were cheaper to run and could offer significant revenue savings. New services would be unlikely to start until 2018 at the earliest.

Councillor Sandbach (formerly chief executive of Telford and Wrekin hospital) suggested that while the Future Fit plans had some issues, he felt they offered theopportunity to create a very effective health care service  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

To consider any resolutions from the Parish Councils.

No resolutions were received from the Parish Councils

To receive an update on community action related activities.

Details of the new “Horsewatch” scheme to reduce thefts and attacks on farm animals in the region were circulated to the meeting. Owners of livestock can sign up to receive information on livestock related crime and get news on preventative measures they can adopt to reduce the risk of their animals being stolen. Residents can also sign up to other updates from Neighbourhood Watch at

https://www.westmercia.police.uk/register-to-receive-watch-messages.html?

The Police are also looking to reintroduce the “Community Speedwatch” scheme in the Policing area. The scheme allows volunteers to monitor speeding in their area. While the scheme can’t be run on all roads, and some training is required, it could be a way of addressing concerns about speeding identified in many rural communities.

Parish Councils can register their interest in the scheme by contacting the coordinator, Ian Connolly

Ian Connolly Scheme Coordinator – Warwickshire and West Mercia Police

Tel: 01562 826032 ext 3032

Email: ian.connolly@westmercia.pnn.police.uk

As always, local residents are also encouraged to complete the ‘have your say’ forms provided at the meeting to ask questions or make suggestions for future agenda items.

No questions were raised by members of the public attending the meeting

Councillor Roberts closed the meeting at 9pm and thanked Paul Tulley for his presentation, and Astley Parish Council for hosting the meeting.