Issue - meetings

Matthew Cole, Director of Public Health presented the Health and Wellbeing Outcomes Framework performance report for 2014/15 and drew the Board’s attention to a number of positive indicators during the year.  Matthew advised that the report had been produced before the recent BHRUT Inspection and that Barts Health NHS Trust had also been put into special measures as a result.

The Board then discussed a number of issues, including:

GP Practices - The four GP practices inspected by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) had all received a ‘Good’ rating.

Secondary Care / BHRUT - The recent inspection at Queens Hospital had recognised the significant improvement by the Trust and it was now out of special measures and had progressed to ‘Requires Improvement’.  Strong clinical support and work with partners had played a part in achieving the turn around.  Work was continuing with the aim of achieving ‘Good’ at the next inspection, which was expected around Christmas 2015.

London Ambulance Service - Concern was expressed about the performance of the LAS.

Smoking Rates and Smoking Cessation - There continued to be a high percentage of smokers in the area.

The numbers of people accessing and completing a smoking cessation courses had reduced, this could be partly due to the apparent increase in E-cigarette consumption locally.  Ante natal and Children’s Centres could target 1,500 to 2,000 smokers a year as opposed to the low hundreds that were being delivered through Primary Care. There was evidence of life-long health issues for children where their mother smoked during pregnancy.

The Chair said that she felt that the resources needed to be invested to stop young people from taking up smoking in the first place, rather than on hardened smokers, some of whom had been smoking for 30+ years.  Mathew Cole commented that it was becoming less socially acceptable to smoke, but the difficulty was how to get the ‘changes for life’ embedded into people’s behaviour so that they break not just the physical addiction but the emotional aspects of smoking and do not return to smoking.

Survival Rates for cancer – The Survival rates for cancer, many of which were smoking related, were the second lowest in the country.  Conor Burke suggested that this should be the focus of a future meeting.

Looked after Children Health Checks - The improvement in the percentage of looked after children with up-to-date health checks had increased at the end of March 2015.  These health checks were an important part of corporate parenting and safeguarding and whilst the improvement was welcomed performance still needed to improve further.

The Board:

(i)  Noted the overarching dashboard and detail provided on specific indicators, and areas where new data was available;

(ii)  Noted the actions being taken to improve or sustain good performance, and the work of the sub-groups; and

(iii)  Agreed that cancer treatment outcomes should be a subject for more in-depth discussion at a future meeting.