Agenda item

(time limit 15 minutes)

17^th February 2022

28^th February 2022

21^st March 2022

The Council was requested to note the minutes of the Cabinet meetings held on the undermentioned dates, to receive questions on any items within the minutes from members of the Council that are not members of the Cabinet and to receive appropriate responses from Cabinet members. The minutes of the Cabinet meetings held on 17^th February 2022, 28^th February 2022 and 17^th March 2022 were submitted.

Members asked the following questions: -

Question from Councillor Hamblett:

I would like to ask a question regarding the very serious issue regarding the recent IT failures affecting Oldham Royal Hospital and indeed the wider Northern Care Alliance across Oldham, Bury and Rochdale.

IT systems began to fail on Wednesday, 18^th May, causing significant disruptions to outpatient services as well as diagnostic tests and scans.  The Chief Medical Officer of Northern Care Alliance, Dr Chris Brookes said that the IT failures represented a “critical incident”. 

Nine days into this critical incident - and with IT systems still causing delays to patient care – it was announced that experts from abroad were being flown in but that there was still no end in sight.  Hospital staff had said that they were unable to keep track of patients or report the results of tests back to patients.

Our residents rely on many of the services affected by the recent IT failures across north Manchester.  A&E departments and surgical theatres experienced protracted and costly delays. So, I ask the Leader, what work has the administration undertaken to investigate these IT failures and will there be a full impact report on the incident so that the full extent of the damage and the efforts to prevent a recurrence can be put before the public?

Councillor Brownridge, Cabinet Member for Adult Care replied that ‘at approximately 00:00 on Wednesday, 18^th May 2022, the Trust started to experience disruption and instability issues in some of its digital clinical systems. From that point the Trust’s digital team started investigating the issues with the relevant technology providers to investigate and resolve this. At that point the Trust also declared an internal Business Continuity Incident. On the evening of Sunday 22^nd May further degradation of the IT systems with critical memory loss resulted in new instability across the core clinical systems further impacting clinical services with greater loss of key activity such as outpatients, diagnostics and planned care and handover of care communications with primary care colleagues. In line with the recognised NHS national emergency preparedness Policy and National Framework, the NCA escalated from a Business Continuity to Critical Incident status. This decision was taken 13:00 on 23^rd May 2022.

Over 400 clinical and administrative systems were affected and were not available to hospital, community and primary care colleagues.

Systems and processes have been developed to capture, assess and respond to potential patient harms. Audits are being undertaken for assurance purposes to identify safe systems for onwards referrals from ED, e-outcomes from OPD and clinical elements such as VTE assessments. Datix systems remain live but are being supplemented with floor walkers to discuss safety and harms with staff and capturing any incidents on paper systems. Incident trends and analysis will be completed. Safe migration back into clinical and administrative system is well underway with supporting audits to ensure risks are controlled.

Throughout this incident regular updates have been provided to officers of the Council, GP practices, Commissioners and local system partners. The Trust recognises more communications could have been done with some stakeholders and further work is being done to ensure that local MPs and are kept up to date with events in a timely manner.  The CQC, and NHS England have been fully briefed and kept updated and the Trust has updated its messages for patients and public. 

Now the major aspects of the IT outage have been dealt with, the Trust is of course turning to a lessons learned exercise and has committed to work with partners on that piece of work. As the relevant Cabinet Member, I have asked our newly jointly appointed officer responsible for health and care integration as part of the current NHS reorganisation to lead a piece of work and report back to the relevant meetings with the outcomes of that work on behalf of the Administration.

Question received from Councillor Lancaster:

Further to the Minutes of the Cabinet meeting held 28^th February 2022, Councillor Lancaster requested an update on the Clock Tower at Diggle.

Councillor Chadderton, Leader of the Council, updated the Council on work that was being undertaken in this regard.

Question received from Councillor Kenyon:

Further to the Cabinet meeting held 17^th February 2022, Councillor Kenyon requested an update on the ‘Creating a Better Place’ initiative.

Councillor Chadderton, Leader of the Council, updated the meeting on this matter and reported that further details thereon would be reported to the appropriate bodies of the Council in due course.

Question received from Councillor Woodvine:

Further to the Cabinet meetings held 17^th and 28^th February 2022, Councillor Woodvine sought clarification on the heritage value of historic buildings in the Borough, especially those that were situated in the Saddleworth wards. In addition, he asked when the ‘street bins’ would arrive.

Councillor Chadderton, Leader of the Council, undertook to pursue these issues and write to Councillor Woodvine thereon.

Question received from Councillor Surjan:

“We know of the incident of the young man that took place on 21st June and unrest that have been subsequently taking place in Coldhurst and other wards after the emergence if the video.

Whilst the community have acknowledged the increase in police presence, local residents and myself as a ward Councillor want to know why it took GMP almost two weeks to inform and appeal to the public for information? This is not acceptable. Please can I request, the Cabinet team and Council Executives arrange a community meeting, which is open to all members of the public as previous ones were behind closed doors.

We know of the incident on the young man that took place on 21^st June and unrest that have been subsequently taking place in Coldhurst and other wards after the emergence if the video.

Whilst the community have acknowledged the increase in police presence, local residents and myself as a ward Councillor want to know why it took GMP almost two weeks to inform and appeal to the public for information? This is not acceptable.

And can I request, the Cabinet team and Council Execs arrange a community meeting, which is open to all members of the public as previous ones were behind closed doors?

Councillor Stretton, Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods, replied that Officers attended the report of an assault on the 21^st June 2022 in an alleyway off Featherstall Road North immediately and a full and thorough investigation was launched, although there were no known suspects. It was not appropriate at the time due to conflicting accounts for this matter to progress to a public appeal for information. Specialist officers continued to work with the victim. When the video was posted and suspect details were provided, officers moved quickly to make arrests. A total of four arrests had been made and further arrests were anticipated.

There was a public meeting that was held on Sunday, 3^rd July and was attended by police, council representative and elected members. Police and partners worked closely with the local community to mitigate rumour and speculation that was being circulated, which led to a meeting of elected members and community leaders being held. This meeting was to brief key individuals who hold influence in the community to provide clarity on the current situation and how they could help dispel rumours and speculation circulating in the community. This meeting was held on Thursday, 7^th July.

At that meeting the council made a commitment to ensure that those in attendance would be updated of any significant developments in the case and therefore further meetings may following due course.

Question received from Councillor Alyas:

We would all agree that Don’t Trash Oldham has been an overwhelming success and I know it made a huge difference in my own ward, Medlock Vale. However, I did have some complaints that not all alleyways were cleared. Can the Cabinet Member provide an explanation and let me know if these will be done in the future?

Councillor Stretton, Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods replied that as far as she had been made aware all the alleys within the Medlock Vale Ward have received a clearance as part of the DTO campaign that was undertaken in December.  It has been noted however that despite this clearance residents in some areas over the last 6 months are continuing to dump waste inappropriately and with this in mind we continue to issue fixed penalties and where they remained unpaid, we will prosecute. If a list of alleys that have been perceived to have been missed can be emailed to the Council, officers will endeavour to ascertain the current situation and if for any reason they have been genuinely missed, the street cleansing team will pay them a return visit.

RESOLVED that:

1.    The minutes of the Cabinet meetings held on 17^th February 2022, 28^th February 20022 and 17^th March 2022 be noted.

2.    The questions and responses provided thereon be noted.