As a mark of respect, the meeting commenced with a minute’s silence to honour the life and passing of His Royal Highness, The Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Phillip.

To confirm as a correct record the minutes of the meetings of the Board held on 12 February, 10 June, 22 July, 26 August, 16 September, 14 October, 11 November and 9 December 2020, 13 January, 17 February and 17 March 2021.

(Note the Minutes had not previously been signed due to Covid19 and holding the meetings remotely.  A copy of all the Minutes have been posted to the Chairman to sign at this meeting.)

The minutes of the meetings of the Board held on 12 February, 10 June, 22 July, 26 August, 16 September, 14 October, 11 November and 9 December 2020, 13 January, 17 February and 17 March 2021 were confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

To receive a verbal update on the Memorandum of Understanding from the Chief Executive of the Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust.

(Note:  Councillor Stockman, Cabinet Member for Adults and Public Health has been invited to the meeting for this item.)

Liz Davenport, Chief Executive of Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust provided a verbal update on the proposal to implement a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the acute Trusts in North East Devon with South Devon and Torbay.  This had been done via an informal arrangement for a long time to ensure equal access across the region to acute services.  Since Covid-19 there had been a need to extend some of the arrangements to make best use of the total resources e.g. buildings and staff and the MOU was part of national policy to work together to make best use of resources.  Members noted that this did not change the responsibility of the Integrated Care Organisation for the people of Torbay, with the majority of people continuing to receive care at Torbay Hospital or other local facilities which had always been the case.  Ms Davenport responded to questions in relation to:

·                     Theatre space at Torbay Hospital – four theatres had been refurbished and all local theatres were currently in use, including the day operating suite which was now running at normal levels.  Indicative funding of £13.3m was expected to be provided through the National Team to extend ophthalmology and other key facilities.

·                     The impact on patients who were transferred to other hospitals and on those who were unable to travel outside Torbay – impact assessments were carried out in such cases and they look at how to make best use of the facilities, sometimes this involves clinicians travelling to treat patients locally and services such as vascular surgery may be treated by a hospital out of normal working hours.  Impact assessments will continue to be carried out on any future changes and they will make sure that they are open and transparent about any proposed changes.

·                     Were there any services still suffering from the pandemic – there were currently no Covid-19 positive patients which had enabled services to move back to business as normal.  Currently they were running at 70% of normal activity for elective pathways and expect this to move to 85% over the next three months.  The Government has provided extra funding to help organisations increase capacity to start addressing backlogs and they need to be flexible on how they use their buildings and staff to address this.

·                     Was a more formal process than the MOU intended to be introduced going forward such as pooled budgets – no, the MOU was intended to be clear about roles and responsibilities as part of National Policy and the White Paper around integrated social care.  Many elements of the White Paper in respect of collaboration have been done in Torbay for a while through the Integrated Care Organisation.

·                     Looking forward does the Hospital have capacity to support patients with Covid-19 from August 2021 to July 2022 – there was likely to be an increase in numbers during that time and the Trust works closely with colleagues in Public Health to regularly review the data, they continue to plan to maintain  ...  view the full minutes text for item 34.

To receive an update on the progress of the Torquay Town Deal.

(Note:  Alan Denby, Director of Economic Strategy and Councillor Long, Cabinet Member for Economic Regeneration, Tourism and Housing have been invited to the meeting for this item.)

The Cabinet Member for Economic Regeneration, Tourism and Housing, Councillor Long, outlined the submitted report on the Torquay Town Deal and Paignton Future High Street programmes.  The programmes had been led and developed with the community through engagement with Neighbourhood Forums and other community groups, based on a number of strategies and plans which would lead to investment and economic development in Torquay and Paignton.  Councillor Long and Alan Denby, Director of Economic Strategy responded to questions in relation to:

·                     The timescale for work to start on site at Crossways – Members had previously been provided with a timeline for implementation of the redevelopment of Crossways, this was being done as a dual process – a legal process via Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) and negotiations with the land owner.  The Chief Executive informed that a date had been set for the enquiry for the CPO of mid July 2021 and therefore this should be the latest time for a decision on the implementation of the proposals.

·                     If the funding for the Princess Gardens and Upton Park was included within the £180m – these projects were part of additional funding of £750,000 for accelerated projects.

·                     What was being done to ensure use of local labour and skills – they were looking at options to ensure the use of local labour which linked to the community wealth building proposals to ensure that money is kept in Torbay.  Risk had been identified around having sufficient local labour and skills due to the level of development happening in the Region.  They were looking at how we could help local people retrain and get into the construction sector, engineering, design as well as the traditional manual elements, working with the local business community to enable them to bid for work and working with colleagues in the NHS, South Devon College and suppliers to identify what we need to create and keep as much wealth as possible in the local area.

·                     What sort of events would the banjo on Princess Gardens be able to host – they were still engaging in conversations on the infrastructure that was required to ensure they meet the needs of the events but hoped to have events such as the Radio 1 Roadshow.

·                     Torbay Road allocation had been reduced to £600,000, what sort of projects would be delivered for this – the reduction in funding for the project related to being permitted to have 5% of a project on beatification and most of the proposals for this project came under that category, it was hoped that capital receipts from other projects would be used to help fund this project to make improvements which were supported by residents and traders.

·                     If the funding covered consultant’s fees – the funding received covered all costs including contingency, the levels of which would be agreed once each project was developed and was held by the Government and then claimed for if needed.

·                     Risks around capacity of TDA to deliver the programmes – the Team would  ...  view the full minutes text for item 35.

To receive an update on the progress of the Future High Streets Fund, Paignton.

(Note:  Alan Denby, Director of Economic Strategy and Councillor Long, Cabinet Member for Economic Regeneration, Tourism and Housing have been invited to the meeting for this item.)

This item was covered under Minute 35.

To approve the Overview and Scrutiny Annual report for 2020/2021 for submission to the Council.

The Overview and Scrutiny Co-ordinator, Councillor Howgate, presented the Annual Overview and Scrutiny Report for the 2020/2021 Municipal Year and thanked everyone for their support during these unprecedented times and having to work in a different way as a result of Covid-19.  Members provided feedback which would be incorporated into the final report to Council.

Resolved:

That, subject to the comments made at the meeting, the Overview and Scrutiny Annual Report for 2020/2021 be approved and submitted to the Annual Council meeting (unanimous).