CRAMOND & BARNTON COMMUNITY COUNCIL
Incorporating Cramond, Barnton, Cammo & Quality Street (West)
Minutes of Meeting held on Thurs 20th April 2017 in
Cramond Kirk Millennium Hall
Present: Ross Wilkinson (Vice-Chair), Ian Williamson (Secretary), Peter Scott, Percy Feketey, Jean Morley, Tim Mitchell, Bert Scott and Marion Mitchell. A total of 18 people were in attendance, including Councillor Lindsay Paterson and Alastair Shields.
Welcome and introductions
The Vice-Chair welcomed those attending and noted apologies from Andrew Mather, Patricia Eason, Grant McCulloch, Gena Wylie, Paul McLaughlin, Alan Rust and from Councillor Work. It was also noted that Alan Rust had tendered his resignation from the CC owing to heath issues. The Vice Chair wished him all the best for the future.
Police Report
The police report was given by PC Aidan Douds covering March 2017. With one housebreaking and 2 attempted break-ins to garages, two thefts from cars over a two-day period in mid-March, a few incidents of shoplifting and a small number of forged banknotes being presented at shops at the Barnton the incidence of crime in the area had been at an all-time low.
Presentation by David White on Integrated Health and Social Care
David White talked the audience through a slide presentation a copy of which will be uploaded on the Community Council website. This set out the increasing challenges facing health and social care services with a particular focus on community based primary care services. The population of Edinburgh was growing and the demographic shifting towards an aging population with more complex needs. Challenges also included infrastructure, financial, workload, functionality and more recently, uncertainty amongst general practitioners about the prospective 2018 general medical services contract. In the same way as the age profile of patients was changing so was that of general medical practitioners and a not insignificant number of GPs had retired or were due to retire in the next few years. With this churn came younger doctors coming into the service and a learning curve for them in terms of familiarising themselves with the various IT support services. In particular, GPs cannot easily keep track of all the community supports and we hope to develop a “linking network” to ensure they have this information
The new Primary Care Support Team saw their key objective as being to help practices develop sustainable primary care models. Recent data had confirmed that one half of Edinburgh practices running with restricted lists and this proportion was likely to rise.
Future models would result in some sessions that were currently being covered by GPs being covered instead by nurses, pharmacists, allied healthcare professionals. These would be supported by strengthened links to social workers as well as to mental health workers. This could be further supported by adopting enhanced training of GP receptionists to enable them to better engage with callers and see whether some patients could be deflected to other services. A pilot in the east of Edinburgh had resulted in approximately 6% of patients being supported to alternative services.
A number of questions were raised and comments made. Concerns were expressed at the expectations that came with development applications for care homes or other facilities for people with more complex needs – such as with assisted living apartments. The H&SC partnership will examine whether the team was looking to see if there were alternative models for covering care homes rather than simply deferring to the local GP practice.
A closer relationship had also been developed with the planning team in the Council. Navigating the system for accessing social care support was complex if the experience of a woman whose mother had recently moved from Aberdeen to Edinburgh was anything to go by. David White advised that a GP from each General Practice in Edinburgh was to assume the role of quality lead. It was suggested that a formal means of providing for community involvement in the GP local quality group would be beneficial and he would raise this with the GP Quality Leads.
A question was raised about the problems of social isolation in the community. The LOOPS organisation had held a number of meetings some time and had raised expectations, but little had come of it. David said he would pursue this. The following explanation/update was received.
Our mutual colleague, David White, has highlighted the concerns from a member of the Cramond and Barnton Community Council about our ‘Talking about later life’ in Edinburgh work, which was raised last night. I would be grateful if you were able to share with me the name and contact details of the lady who raised these concerns so that I can reach out to her directly.
By way of acknowledgement – indeed our apology – this work has indeed taken significantly longer than initially projected, which is regretful. I have attached the preliminary report from the consultation exercise which is currently with the new locality management teams for their comments.
Once these are returned we will be producing a more concise and appropriately presented report, which will be mailed directly to all participants and made available through both the EVOC and LOOPs websites and shared through normal City of Edinburgh Council and Edinburgh Health and Social Care Partnership channels.
Alongside this we are currently:
Developing locality-based engagement events to introduce the reports in each locality – including notes from the incoming locality teams.
Engaging local service providers to establish local Older People’s Forums within each locality to provide a formal engagement route into the locality teams and Edinburgh Health and Social Care Partnership.
Exploring people’s appetite for a short training programme, to provide support to those who would like to take a leading role within those groups but who may not have taken such a role before.
I should note that the attached document has not initially been shared more widely to date because it does not achieve the standard we would like of a formal response, standing at over 138 pages of nearly raw data. The new document will be much more accessible.
Planning Report
Peter Scott reported on the decision of the Development Sub-Committee to reject the application in principle for 1400 housing units and ancillary development at the site bounded by Turnhouse Road and Craigs Road and including 5.2 hectares for housing north of Craigs Road within the Green Belt.
Secretary’s Report
The Secretary provided an update on the prospective new airlink 200 bus service which was not going to be following the route which many in the community had hoped for. A follow-up meeting with Alex Cole Hamilton and others was being arranged.
Councillors Report
Lindsay Paterson reported on the continuing pressure she and Alastair Shields had brought to bear on the Culture Committee and officials in striving to secure a commitment to agree a lease on the gatehouse at Lauriston Castle so that the development of the building into a day facility for people with dementia and their carers could progress. The legal advice required on the lease was still awaited. But in the interim permissions had been given for the volunteers to continue with the work on the garden. Both she and Alastair also took the opportunity to reciprocate the kind words of the Vice-Chair for all the work and efforts which the Councillors had given to them on this occasion of their last CC meeting. In the same way the Councillors said that a debt of thanks was owing to the CC members who gave of their time freely in the interests of the community.
Date of Next Meeting and Any Other Business
The next meeting will take place on Thursday 18 May. The intention will be to invite the newly elected Councillors to come along and participate in an open discussion about priorities going forward.
Date of Next Meeting
- Thursday 18 May 2017