Agenda item

This report enables members of the Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee to commission a task group on GP and primary care accessibility in the Borough.

Councillor Mary Daly introduced the report which enabled members of the Committee to commission a task group on GP and primary care accessibility in the borough of Brent. She explained that the paper had been inspired by Councillor Abdi Aden’s constituent experiences in Stonebridge in relation to accessing GP services during the pandemic. Councillor Daly felt that the task group should look at comparisons of the more affluent wards in Brent and North West London and the investment precedent in those wards, including the number of GPs per head and a few other agreed indicators, which may or may not show the degree of equity within primary care. She also thought there should be comparisons of the best and worst GP surgeries in the Borough. She expressed that she looked forward to the first meeting to distil further what the group wanted to look at in the task group sessions..

The Chair thanked Councillor Daly for introducing the scoping paper and invited those present to ask questions, with the following issues raised:

Dr M C Patel (NWL CCG) agreed that looking at comparisons of deprived and affluent wards and good and bad practices would be a useful activity. He highlighted that the scoping paper was based on a paper from 2010 and some factors were relevant but others were not, therefore suggested the group worked together with primary care to look at outcomes as well as access, to develop something with significant meaning that was helpful to GPs, Brent Council, members and constituents.

Sheik Auladin (NWL CCG) reiterated that they were happy to work with the Council on the task group. He advised that a lot of work had been done by the Integrated Care System (ICS) around North West London primary care and levelling up in Brent. He informed the Committee that a lot of investment was coming to Brent as part of that process and there was a need to ensure that was reflected in any discussions on primary care going forward. Jo Ohlsen (Accountable Officer, NWL CCG) emphasised this, expressing that they wanted to be assured in North West London that they were reducing health inequalities within and across boroughs. She highlighted that as part of the merger to a single CCG they had agreed they would move investment from some more affluent parts in North West London to places like Brent, and the first area that was being done was diabetes and mental health. Jo Ohlsen would share the data the group were seeking which would influence where changes were made. In response, the Committee highlighted the importance of not creating a 2 tier set of patients, for example ensuring that if digital access tools were used for the treatment and monitoring of diabetes patients the same treatment and monitoring was available for patients without that type of access.

The Committee also wanted the task group to explore what services Primary Care Networks (PCNs) would provide and the number of doctors attributed to different areas, and consider the pre and post covid environment in their discussions.

The Chair moved on to invite Committee members to make recommendations, with the following recommendations RESOLVED:

i)              To agree the scope of the scrutiny task group review including the membership and terms of reference as set out in Appendix 1 of the report.