Agenda item

During this item Councillor Laila Butt, Cabinet Member for Crime and Enforcement, left and took no further part in the meeting and Helen Jenner, Corporate Director of Children’s Services, arrived.

Ian Winter CBE, Care Act Programme Lead, introduced the report and gave a presentation that highlighted the key recommendations from the refresh of the Joint Strategic Assessment (JSNA) for 2015 and also provided demographic information on the health issues within the Borough, which included:

·  The poor healthy life and life expectancy for both men and women.

·  The effects of unemployment and depravation, which were both high in the Borough.

·  The impact that hypertension, late diagnosis and / or unmanaged diabetes and smoking related illness had on unplanned hospitalisation.

·  Two thirds of the Borough’s residents were overweight

·  The significant health differences between the wards.

·  The health risks in the longer term and the decisions that would be needed on potential investment.

The Board raised a number of issues, which included:

·  In terms of planning, there was no agreed approach on how the partners would use their combined budgets to tackle health outcomes. 

·  An acknowledgement that, with reducing resources, it was no longer possible for partners to continue to operate as they had in the past and there was a need for more intelligent investment in order to achieve the best outcomes.  The style of approach suggested by the report was a way to focus on issues when resources were under increased pressure and the same level of universal service to all wards was no longer sustainable. 

·  The need to focus less on geographical sitting of services and to increase focus on what outcomes were to be achieved and how partners would then invest resources to achieve those health improvements.

·  Ward information could create artificial community boundaries and was not always the best way to provide data on the effects on health of demographics / community turnover or to indicate specific health issue hot spots within the different areas within a ward.  Once the principles were agreed with all partners, work could then commence to identify the super hot spots where a real difference in outcomes could then be achieved.

·  The importance of issues such as, clinical need, paediatric emergencies, safeguarding, unplanned hospital admissions, people with multiple conditions / risks, accessibility of services for people with mental health and learning needs, health education and early intervention with families with young children and the effects of smoking and alcohol. 

·  Resources should be targeted to where there greatest impact could be achieved. This may reduce provision for those individuals that were better off health wise.

·  Population health tools were available for use, once the decision was made on what issues to target.

·  How GP practices could be working differently in the future.

The Board:

(i)  Supported the commissioning of services by partner organisations that aligned with the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment findings and the Health and Wellbeing Board key themes of prevention, protection and safeguarding, improvement and integration of services and care and support; and

(ii)  Requested that in-line with statutory requirements, the Public Health Department lead an update of the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment in 2016 to inform commissioning in 2016/17.