By Andrew Topping, Local Democracy Reporter
Nottinghamshire County Council could hold an extra meeting to discuss the soaring pressure on local healthcare services.
It follows calls from two Labour councillors to hold an all-day scrutiny meeting to ensure the authority is able to examine all the problems currently facing patients and NHS staff in Notts.
The council’s health scrutiny committee met on Tuesday (January 10) but only one item was on the agenda.
This was £5.6m planned for extra surgery and diagnostic capacity at Newark Hospital, which is due to roll out in April.
However, the initial plan was for Tuesday’s meeting to also scrutinise issues with access to GP surgeries and potentially NHS dentistry across the county.
Neither of the discussions was able to take place due to scheduling issues, meaning they have been pushed back until at least the next meeting on February 21.
The February meeting is also due to include a talk from Nottingham University Hospitals Trust (NUH) about current winter pressures and maternity.
The trust, which runs City Hospital and the Queen’s Medical Centre, last week stood down a ‘critical incident’ called following significant pressure and is currently under intense scrutiny over the standard of maternity care.
The inclusion of potentially all three items on the same agenda led to concern from some opposition members that councillors will not have enough time to scrutinise all issues in detail.
Councillor Mike Pringle (Lab) and Cllr Michelle Welsh (Lab) both called for a separate, potentially all-day meeting to be scheduled between now and February 21 so politicians have more opportunity to discuss all items in full.
Cllr Pringle (Lab), who represents Ollerton, said in Tuesday’s meeting: “Because of the critical situation we find ourselves in, I’d ask that we call an extraordinary meeting.
“That might be negated by nobody being able to get here but it’s important because of the situation.
“Whether it takes until 3pm, 5pm, it’s vitally important that we are able to scrutinise things at this moment in time.”
Cllr Welsh (Lab), who represents Arnold South, added: “There are such issues in all our communities at the moment and this is the only body that can ask those questions.
“That’s why we need to have the extra meeting. I would do everything possible to ensure I can sit here all day if it meant we could go through it all.”
It led to council officers agreeing to try and schedule a separate meeting between now and next month to discuss access to GP services.
The February 21 meeting would only include NUH to give councillors enough time to scrutinise hospital pressures and maternity.
The meeting scheduled for March 28 would then look into NHS dentistry across the county.
After the move was agreed, Cllr Sue Saddington (Con), the committee’s chairman, said: “We know what you are trying to say.
“If we are getting outside people in – which is what this committee does – we have to go with their availability.
“We will do our best. The February 21 meeting will include maternity and [winter pressures], and if we can pull in a meeting before that, we will look at access to GP surgeries.”
