Agenda and draft minutes

Cllr Chamberlain, Chair of the meeting in Cllr Rye’s absence, welcomed everyone to the meeting and introductions were made.

Apologies for absence were received from Cllr Michael Rye who was substituted by Cllr Edward Smith.

Apologies for absence were also received from Cllr Gina Needs (Cabinet Member for Community Safety & Cohesion) and Ivana Price (Head of Service, Young People & Community Safety).

Members of the Council are invited to identify any disclosable pecuniary, other pecuniary or non-pecuniary interests relevant to the items on the agenda.

Cllr Hannah Dyson declared a non-pecuniary interest in item No: 4 of the agenda as she works for the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead.

To agree the minutes of the meeting held on 25 September 2024.

AGREED the minutes of the Healthy & Safe Communities Scrutiny Panel held on 25 September 2024.

To receive the report of Heather Gallagher, Interim Director of Midwifery and
Dr Dhruv Rastogi, Divisional Clinical Director WCCD.

Professor Lenny Byrne, Chief Nurse, NMUH, NHS Trust, introduced the report which provided an update on the actions taken in response to the Maternity Services Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection in May 2023, carried out at North Middlesex Hospital. The report was received in December 2023, in which the service was rated inadequate for the domains of Safe and Well Led, following the focused review.

Representatives of North Middlesex Hospital attended the Health & Adult Social Care Scrutiny Panel meeting on 24^th April 2024 to discuss the QCQ findings and the actions being planned and taken to address them.

The maternity services were onboarded into NHS England’s Maternity Safety Support Programme (MSSP) on 29^th July 2023 for intensive support, in response to the CQC report. The MSSP Maternity Improvement Advisor (MIA) began supporting the services on 1^st March 2024. The MIA has been visiting monthly to offer on-going improvement support.

A 132-point Action Plan was tabled at this evening’s meeting which provided details on what action has been taken and how it has been delivered and it was advised that there has been a significant response across the whole of the Maternity Service in engagement to the Action Plan.

Members of the Panel were asked to note the progress made on the actions taken in response to the CQC ‘Must and Should Do’ recommendations and to make any comments in response to the report. The Panel were also asked to consider if any further scrutiny of the issue is required and, if so, to identify the focus and timescale.

Questions were invited from Members.

Members sought further information on what action had been taken and how it has been delivered and it was advised that there are multiple streams of improvement work on-going including Obstetric Triage, Fetal Surveillance, Maternity Experience, Risk Assessment, Governance and Wellbeing and Culture. All the workstreams and action plans are being compiled into one large overarching Perinatal Improvement Action Plan.

In response to Member’s questions regarding leadership and culture improvements, it was advised that the Maternity Service has had a change in senior leadership, having been without a Divisional Director of Midwifery since July 2024. However, a new interim Director of Midwifery with significant maternity improvement experience has been appointed and started in post at the beginning of November. The CQC improvement workstreams have already been taken over by the Director of Midwifery.

New Professional Midwifery Advocates are supporting cultural improvement activities and wellbeing initiatives for staff. A suite of cultural improvement training has been and continues to be offered and a communication strategy has also been developed and implemented to improve staff engagement, feedback and staff involvement in co-designing improvements.

In response to Members’ questions regarding equipment it was advised that there are improved processes in place for monitoring equipment. Additional Dawes Redman CTGs have been purchased and a full new digital ‘Badgernet’ IT maternity and neonatal electronic patient record (EPR) system is being procured with expected early 2025 roll out.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

To receive the report of Jonathon Toy, Head of Community Safety.

Jonathon Toy, Head of Community Safety, introduced the report which set out performance against the agreed priorities of the Safer and Stronger Communities Board Plan. The key points in the report were highlighted and it was noted that Totable Notifiable Offences in Enfield decreased by 5.9% in the year ending September 2024 when compared to the previous 12 months. London saw a 4.1% decrease over the same period. Further data, comparisons and trends were provided for each category.

Questions were invited from Members.

Members requested an update on Operation Pisces and were advised that the focus on the Upper Edmonton and Edmonton Green area has continued. Two further partnership enforcement operations have taken place since the last Healthy & Safe Communities Scrutiny Panel report, resulting in the closure of a cuckooed address and private housing premises which was being used for drug supply.

In response to Members’ concerns regarding the increase in drug offences in September 2024, it was advised that this relates to the increased Police and Council enforcement activity related to Operation Pisces, covering the wards of Upper Edmonton and Edmonton Green. The Community Safety Partnership are looking at how they can take the learning and best practice from this multi-agency approach and apply it across the borough.

Members were further advised that since Operation Pisces commenced in June 2024 there has been a 35% reduction in all reported crime across the five wards which make up the Operation Pisces footprint. Priority offences including robbery, and theft person has reduced by 50% for the Upper Edmonton area and Enfield Borough has recorded a 25% reduction in all reported crime between June 2024-end of September 2024. The intention is to continue the enforcement action under Operation Pisces until the end of December 2024, The Safer Enfield Partnership Tasking and Enforcement Group is expanding its remit to cover a wider area than the Operation Pisces footprint with the aim being to develop this into a boroughwide Tasking and Operations Group.

Members were pleased to see that Domestic Abuse incidents have decreased in Enfield by 11.7% in the 12month period to September 2024 and acknowledged that this demonstrates the good work taking place to address this issue.

In response to Members’ concerns regarding the increase in Robbery offences in Enfield, Officers acknowledged that this remains a challenge in the borough. December 2023 saw a significant spike in Robbery offences, which accounted for half of the 16.6% increase in the 12 months ending September 2024. The Community Safety Partnership is looking at the causes of those increases and planning actions to ensure there is not a similar increase in 2024.

In response to a question regarding the number of non-criminal hate offences recorded in the borough, Inspector Wayne Matthews (Neighbourhood Policing) said that this was not his area of expertise but could obtain this information from the relevant analyst and circulate to Members.

Action: Inspector Wayne Matthews

Members noted the significant increase in gun crime offences in 2023/24 and were concerned to see  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

To note the Healthy & Safe Communities Work Programme 2024/25.

The Panel AGREED that the SSCB update item scheduled for the January 2025 meeting would focus on Youth Violence up to the age of twenty-four.

With the above amendment, the Panel NOTED the Work Programme 2024/25.

To note the dates of future meetings as follows:

Monday 27 January 2025

Monday 10 March 2025

Thursday 24 April 2025

All meetings will commence at 7:00pm and will be held in the Conference Room at the Civic Centre.

NOTED the next meeting of the Panel would be held on Monday 27 January 2025 at 7:00pm in the Conference Room at the Civic Centre.