Issue - meetings

The appendix to this item is included in the ‘Supporting Documents’ pack.

Matthew Cole, LBBD Director of Public Health introduced his 17th Annual Report and advised that the revised summary in the covering report would be provided on the web site.  Matthew then advised that during the preparation of his Annual Report he had looked back to see what impact or positive change had been achieved and had noted that for all but four reports the focus had been on health care public health with a focus on variations in care and outcomes.  However, in the last four years Public Health had been a function of the Council and the focus has increasingly been on what causes people to be ill in the first place.  Matthew drew the Board’s attention to several issues:

Chapter 1. The growing youth violence was a serious concern.

Chapter 2. This dealt with the growing concerns of mental health and the growing perception of year 10 children that their mental health is not good.  This then raised the question of provision and the services by CAMHS and if we need to challenge what we do, how we do it, have we got the provision right or do we need to invest more at Tiers 1, 2 and 3.

Chapter 3. This was championing prevention, looking at social determinants, the drivers for change and the potential for Community Solutions to add value and opportunity to delivering health outcomes and ELHCP / STP and other organisations to provide seamless wrap around services.  Recent innovation included the support to keep people in their tenancies and help individuals, particularly children, escape the cycle and effects of domestic violence.  The use of devolved powers was also a driver for change.

Chapter 4. Reviewed the evidence and analysed how the Grant had been used to contain or reduce the costs of health and social care, without negative effects on health outcomes and also the returns against expenditure.  However, while data is often used to support insight and decision making, it should only be part of our tool kit: listening and talking to the population, not just patients, was equally important.

Chapter 5. This included the model for health town at Riverside and why this and learning from it could be expanded to all developments.

Mathew said that he hoped that he had had an impact on people’s view of how we look at serious violent youth crime, what is driving that.  This in turn lead on to learning about youth culture and causes of violence.  Matthew stressed that this is a very real problem and arresting children who may be experiencing trauma associated with violence in their past and who may have progressed from victim to perpetrator, was not the answer

The Chair moved that the meeting be extended to 8.30 p.m.  This was agreed by the Board.

The Chair thanked Matthew for his frank and thought-provoking report.  The Chair and Cllr Butt, LBBD Cabinet Member for Enforcement and Community Safety, explained that they were now working with young people, which had  ...  view the full minutes text for item 37