Agenda item

Matthew Cole, Director of Public Health, presented the report on the draft refreshed Health and Wellbeing Strategy, which set out the vision for improving the health and wellbeing of residents and reducing health inequalities by 2018 through identifying key priorities based upon evidence in the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA).  The priorities would then act as the cornerstone for commissioning plans and other agreements and how partners would use those and other resources to deliver the agreed priorities to maximise health gain.  The refresh of the Strategy was supported by two key documents the Health and Wellbeing Outcomes Framework, which set out the monitoring indicators, and the Health and Wellbeing Strategy Delivery Plan 2015-18, which set out the and time frame for the delivery of the key actions.

In response to questions Matthew advised that there were other strategies and plans that hold overall responsibility for an issue, for example for domestic violence sits under the responsibility of the Community Safety Partnership, therefore they were not duplicated in this strategy.  It was felt that Child Sexual Exploitation was an area where the Health and Wellbeing Board should lead in view of the health partnerships.  Matthew went on to explain that the Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy covered high level strategic risks as specific risks such as maternity services returning from Barts Trust would be dealt with by the appropriate Health and Wellbeing Board sub-groups dealing with delivery.

There was discussion about the provision of a strategic map to show who the lead Board and Sub Group was for responsibilities and priorities.  Matthew agreed to provide this for this Strategy.

Councillor Turner commented on three aspects.  He was concerned that there was no reference to sickle cell anaemia, which had been raised at earlier Board meetings as being of high prevalence in this Borough.  There was also no overview of the effect of transient populations, which in the Borough was being exasperated by the turnover of tenants in private accommodation and that accommodation could often be of poor quality.  Cllr Turner said he was concerned that this could affect private rented tenants’ ability to seek and continue with health care and for them to be targeted to achieve good health outcomes.  Cllr Turner commented that he was also concerned about the ability of residents to easily access shops to get fresh foods, such as fruit and vegetables, and whether the Planning Framework could be a way of improving access to shops that could encourage health eating.

Matthew responded that Housing had been consulted and had indicated that they were extremely happy with the Strategy; however, he would go back to housing and ask them about making greater reference to the effect of transient and poor quality housing.  Anne Bristow, Corporate Director of Adult and Community Services, advised that sickle cell anaemia had been a priority in the previous strategy.  As a result action plans had been put into place and already delivered against resulting in improvements, therefore, this was not a priority this year.  Matthew added that diabetes was in last year and was still a priority this year because the issues had not improved sufficiently to the sub-group’s satisfaction.

Matthew confirmed that BME did not just cover black ethnicities and did included people of white European origin, including from countries such as Latvia, Poland and Romania.

The Chair said that she felt it was important that the wider implications were understood by all partners and within partner organisation, as a result she was formally requesting that the Board partner organisation consider this Strategy at all their executive Board meetings.

The Board:

(i)  The Board agreed to the Health and Wellbeing Strategy, Outcomes Framework and Delivery Plan 2015-18, as set out in the report, subject to the:

(a)  Provision of an strategy map showing responsibilities and priorities,

(b)  Inclusion of an overview which acknowledged that tenant turnover in private rented accommodation could impact on health outcomes;

(ii)  The Board also requested that the Strategy should be presented to the governing / executive meetings of the Board Members organisations, including LBBD Cabinet, and the governing boards of the CCG, BHRUT and NELFT so that they were all fully aware of the across the board implications.