The Joint Health Overview & Scrutiny Committee was scheduled to discuss health updates from various NHS providers, and to examine integrated neighbourhoods. The meeting was also scheduled to include a discussion of a proposed Superloop bus route.

Integrated Neighbourhoods

The committee was scheduled to discuss the North East London (NEL) model for integrated neighbourhood working. The report pack states that the NEL vision is that:

Everyone in north east London lives in a neighbourhood which supports and actively contributes to their physical and mental health and wellbeing.

The report pack states that the partners across the system will work closely together in local neighbourhoods to create an environment in which a range of assets, facilities and services are available to enable local people to start, live and age well and healthily.

The four strategic goals and desired outputs of the scheme are:

• Work with and for local communities
• Work in a proactive, preventative way to address rising need
• Deliver integrated, accessible care
• Support service sustainability

The report pack notes that the Barking and Dagenham team is still developing its model, with a proposal that integrated locality teams bring together health and care professionals and community groups to support specific populations, and neighbourhood networks bring together the voluntary and community sector in each neighbourhood.

The report pack also notes that many community and primary care services in City and Hackney are organised around the eight neighbourhoods across the place.

Each neighbourhood will implement a core team coordinating care for high intensity users with rising needs. The team will be strongly rooted in its neighbourhood, will be well connected to local communities and community assets and will take a population health approach.

The core team will include:

• Primary care
• Community nursing
• Community therapies
• Community mental health
• Social care
• Community navigators
• Wider partners defined by each neighbourhood to meet local needs
• Teams delivering proactive care

The NEL roadmap for 2025/26 delivery of neighbourhoods will focus on implementing the core integrated neighbourhood team for both adults and children, enabled by a population health management approach.

The integrator role will be vital to the delivery of neighbourhood working. It will host and facilitate the design and implementation of the team, bridge the fragmentation across existing teams, deliver key enabling infrastructure, and support and enable a population health management approach.

Health Updates

The committee was scheduled to receive health updates from various NHS providers. Zina Etheridge, Chief Executive, was scheduled to present an update on NHS North East London. Henry Black, Chief Finance Officer, was scheduled to present a finance overview.

The NHS North East London update included:

• A national decision was made in March 2025 to reduce Integrated Care Boards' (ICB) running costs by 50% by the end of the year, requiring ICBs to develop a new operating model focused on strategic commissioning[^2].
• A national 'blueprint' ICB model was issued in early May, and all ICBs were required to confirm how they would deliver this within the new financial envelope by 30 May.
• In the new operating model, ICBs will be responsible for strategic commissioning as their primary function with a focus on improving population health, reducing inequalities and ensuring access to high quality care.
• Delivering integrated neighbourhood working will be a key role for ICBs.
• The statutory responsibilities of ICBs may be revisited in a forthcoming Health Bill.
• NHS North East London has been working through System and Place to meet its four statutory aims: to improve outcomes in population health and health care; tackle inequalities in outcomes, experience and access; enhance productivity and value for money and help the NHS to support broader social and economic development.
• The ICB has saved £169.9m through the release of non-recurrent benefits and cost improvement programmes since 2022/23.
• The ICB has been successful in gaining an additional £57.8m in capital allocation in 2024/25 and has received an additional £232.1m growth allocations for planning processes in 2025/26.
• The ICB is the first living wage ICB in the country and has worked through its Places and across the System to raise awareness of the importance of living wage approaches in its work.
• The ICB has approved a NEL Homeless Health Strategy which is co-designed with experts from lived experience and system partners, aims to address the serious health inequalities faced by people experiencing homelessness.

The Finance Overview included:

• The month 12 reported outturn position across the NEL system is a deficit of £79.7m.
• All organisations are planning for reductions in substantive staff, which will reduce capacity and will impact day to day service delivery.
• Trusts must deliver a minimum 40% reduction in agency spend and a 15% reduction in bank staff.
• The high-level workforce plans include a reduction of around 2,400 whole time equivalents (WTE), of which c. 280 are substantive.
• The organisation is seeking to move away from reliance on traditional cost cutting and efficiency measures to an approach that reflects greater allocative efficiency.
• The organisation is focusing on demand management to support people at the most appropriate point as early as possible, with a focus on keeping people healthy at home.
• The organisation is exploring at pace how greater efficiency across back office functions can support increased savings.
• NEL's total capital budget for 2025/26 is £165.5m.

The committee was also scheduled to receive provider updates from:

• Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospital NHS Trust (BHRUT)
• North East London Collaborative
• Barts Health NHS Trust

The Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospital NHS Trust update included:

• In May, 79.2% of patients were admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours of attending A&Es, higher than the London and national average.
• The department sees over 750 patients daily double its original capacity.
• 436 patients were referred to mental health services from A&Es.
• Average length of stay in A&E for patients with mental health conditions was 16 hours; 157 patients were in for over 12 hours.
• In May, 70.6% of patients received their first treatment within 18 weeks of referral.
• 57,913 patients were on the waiting list; the majority were waiting for an outpatient appointment.
• 620 patients had been waiting over a year.
• The trust met all of the cancer targets in April.
• The trust ended 2024/25 with a deficit of £31 million slightly better than forecast.
• The trust needs to save £61 million this year, which means spending around £5 million less each month to run hospitals.
• The trust is looking forward to launching its electronic patient record later in the year.

The North East London Collaborative updates included:

• The North East London Mental Health, Learning Disability and Autism (NEL MHLDA) Collaborative is a partnership between the NEL Integrated Care Board (ICB), East London Foundation Trust (ELFT), North East London Foundation Trust (NELFT), and the seven place-based partnerships.
• The North East London NHS Community Collaborative (NELCC) aim is to improve community health services by working collaboratively across NHS trusts, local authorities, and other healthcare providers including, East London NHS FT, North East London NHS FT, Homerton Healthcare NHS FT and Barts Health NHS Trust.
• Demand pressures on services continue to be extremely high, in particular on crisis and inpatient services for adults, and neurodiversity services for children and adults.
• The Mental Health Crisis Assessment Hub at Goodmayes Hospital has now opened to provide a 24/7 service.
• The conference's theme was '500 days', focussing on progress made as a Collaborative and how it can be improved moving forward.
• The NEL MHLDA priorities for mental health are to reduce out of area placements and length of stay in acute MH beds, reduce length of stay in emergency departments, and increase access to children and young people's mental health services.
• The NEL MHLDA priorities for learning disability and autism are to redesign pathways for children and adults with neurodevelopmental conditions (e.g. autism and ADHD).
• The Collaborative is working on delivering a balanced plan for the system, along with individual trusts, for 2025/26.
• The focus for 2025/26 is on developing core offers through improvement networks, with a consistent collaborative approach across service areas such as community nursing and urgent community response, stroke and neuro-rehabilitation and services for Babies, Children and Young People (such as autism).
• The Mental health crisis café is now out to tender in Barking and Dagenham, with Havering, Redbridge and Waltham Forest also due to go out to tender shortly.

The Barts Health NHS Trust update included:

• Since introducing the patient portal across Barts Health, there has been a significant drop in missed appointments.
• The focus for the next 12 months will be transforming services and ways of working under the strategic framework of patients, people and partnerships.
• The organisation is developing cost improvement programmes in areas where it can safely make efficiency savings without adversely affecting patient care.
• The Academic Centre for Healthy Ageing (ACHA) a new joint initiative between Barts Health NHS Trust and Queen Mary University of London, supported by Barts Charity has launched.
• Newham Hospital has secured over £13 million through the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme to help to cut energy bills and create a more comfortable environment for patients and staff.
• Whipps Cross and Newham hospitals are getting £28 million from the government to help fix and improve buildings on the estates.
• From 30 June 2025, births are temporarily pausing at Barking Community Birth Centre while resources are shifted to where they are most needed at the main maternity unit.

Superloop Bus Route

Ian Buckmaster, representing Healthwatch Havering, requested for the committee to discuss the proposed Superloop Bus Route. Members were scheduled to receive a presentation on the proposed TfL Superloop bus service SL12: Gants Hill to Rainham via Romford and a suggested alternative route serving St George's Health and Wellbeing Hub, Hornchurch submitted by Havering Healthwatch.

The advantages of the alternative route included that it would:

• Serve Hornchurch Town Centre, a more populous area and major local town centre (when compared with Elm Park).
• Serve Hornchurch Station rather than Elm Park Station (both served by District Line trains, and adjacent on that line).
• Serve the St George's Hub, a major health facility that serves a much wider area than its immediate locality with patients drawn from a wide area, including patients undergoing kidney dialysis.
• Improve access to St George's Hub from the Rainham area (there is currently no direct bus route to it from Rainham).
• Provide a better service to Harrow Lodge Park and Leisure Centre, Hornchurch and Hornchurch Country Park.