The March meeting of the committee will include reports on a range of local health services. It will include updates on the NHS 10-year Health Plan, Artificial Intelligence use in the NHS, the new St George’s Health and Wellbeing Hub and long term health conditions, as well as the Committee's work programme for the coming year.

Long Term Conditions

This report pack includes a presentation from Charlotte Stone, System Programme Director for Long-Term Conditions (LTCs) at NHS North East London. It describes the challenges presented by long term conditions for residents, and for healthcare providers, and summarises the work the NHS has been doing to improve prevention and treatment in this area. It explains that:

Long term conditions account for half of GP appointments, 64% of all outpatients and over 70% of all inpatient bed days.

The report describes the causes of, and demographic factors related to, long term conditions, and how they will be affected by population growth. It lays out the NHS's four main themes for improving long term healthcare provision:

1. Primary long term conditions prevention & early identification
2. Secondary prevention and optimisation
3. Co-ordinated care and equability of service
4. Enabling people to live well with a long term condition and tertiary prevention

The report then describes the work being done in each of those areas, before listing its plans for the next 1-2 years.

NHS North East London Update

This report pack contains a presentation by Zina Etheridge, Chief Executive of NHS North East London. It includes a summary of the NHS's response to the Government's 10 Year Health Plan. This document sets out how the NHS intends to improve the nation's health over the next ten years. The NHS has asked for the Government to include several key points in its plan, including:

Methods to improve services that bring together patients, practitioners and clinicians, equalising power to change.

The report also describes the use of Artificial Intelligence in healthcare provision. For example, a new AI driven system will be used to help spot lung cancer in chest x-rays.

By rolling out AI-driven triage to local hospitals, NELCA aims to cut the waiting time for X-ray results from three weeks to just three days for scans with significant findings.

The report also includes several updates about changes to healthcare provision across North East London. The new St George’s Health and Wellbeing Hub in Hornchurch will provide a range of services from GPs to mental health.

Once fully operational, the hub will provide access, seven days a week, to a wide range of high-quality health and wellbeing services all in one place; transforming the way health and care is delivered for around 250,000 people in Havering and surrounding areas.

The report also includes an update on the Primary Care Quality Outcomes Framework, and on the NHS 111 service.

Provider Updates - March 2025

This section of the report pack includes updates from a number of healthcare providers across North East London.

Homerton Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

This update contains a summary of Homerton Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust's performance against a range of targets set by NHS England. It also includes a summary of corporate activity at the Trust.

Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust

This update contains a summary of Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust's performance against a range of targets set by NHS England. In November 2024, 77% of patients at the Trust's A&E departments were admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours of attending.

In November, over 77% of patients were admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours of attending our A&Es which was higher than the London and national average.

The Trust saw 100 more patients per day in November 2024 than it had the previous year.

That month, we saw an extra 100 patients a day when compared to the previous November.

The report also welcomes the Trust's new Chief Medical Officer, Professor Andrew Deaner.

North East London Collaborative Updates

This section includes updates from the North East London Mental Health, Learning Disability and Autism Collaborative, and the Community Healthcare Collaborative.

Mental Health, Learning Disability and Autism Collaborative

This report outlines the challenges facing the Collaborative, including a doubling in the number of children and young people with mental health conditions since 2017. The report goes on to describe service developments, and how the Collaborative intends to address the challenges it faces.

CYP with mental health conditions between 2017 and 2023 has doubled.

Community Healthcare Collaborative

The Community Healthcare Collaborative exists to improve community healthcare services through partnership. It focuses on

delivering more integrated, person-centred care, improving outcomes for local populations, and enhancing the efficiency of community health services in the region.

This part of the report provides a range of updates from different parts of the Collaborative's work, including its Children's Services team and its Rapid Response team.

Latest NELFT Updates

This section provides a series of updates from the North East London Foundation Trust (NELFT). These include the opening of the new St George's Health and Wellbeing Hub, an update on the Ilford Exchange Health Centre, and news that the Havering Speech and Language Therapy team has been highly commended at the HSJ awards.

Barts Health NHS Trust

This report provides an update on Barts Health NHS Trust's progress towards eliminating the backlog in elective treatment caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The Trust has reduced the number of patients waiting for treatment for more than 65 weeks from 2,800 to 330. The report also outlines the Trust's plans for managing pressure on emergency services over Winter, and announces the appointment of its new Chair, Professor Ian Jacobs.

Finance Overview

The agenda includes a report by Henry Black, the Chief Finance Officer of NHS North East London. It describes the NHS's Medium Term Financial Strategy, and says that NHS North East London is

committed to delivering a sustainable recurrently balanced financial position over the medium term.

However, the report acknowledges that the NHS faces severe financial challenges, and that

the current approach is insufficient to return the system to balance.

It says that more fundamental changes to the way healthcare is provided will be required in the future.

The Scrutiny Report

The final document in the report pack is a report about the work of the committee itself. It asks the committee to review its Forward Plan for the year ahead. The meeting is the last in the municipal year, so the report asks the committee to suggest any items it would like to consider during 2024-25. The report also contains an action log of all outstanding actions from previous meetings, and a recommendations log, containing details of the recommendations made to the NHS by the committee.