Agenda item

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 increased their insight on how and why we need to work with young offenders, who were often victims themselves, and not just punish them.  Identifying what they need and want, and not assuming we know, was very important.  The Chair commented that the Youth Zone would soon be available to work with many young people, but we need to think about what we are doing for those on the edges of the cohort.  How we support young people, so they move away from revenge mentality, was really innovative work.  Cllr Butt stressed how difficult the year had been and the immense challenges that had occurred.  The Chair suggested that the Board would benefit from a presentation from a group of young people that she had been working with recently on what they were doing to address issues ‘on the road’.

Cllr Carpenter commended the report and particularly chapter one, which had provided insight into the issues of concern to young people and details of the THRIVE programme and the work at schools, which was noted.

Conor Burke, CCG, felt that the report was a compelling piece of work and that the learning and development of change needed to be captured and recorded for future learning.

The Board:

Received the report of the Director of Public Health and noted:

(i)  The questions the DPH posed in Appendix 1 of the report and the need for the Partners to investigate those issues and find solutions in improving the health and wellbeing of residents:

(ii)  The potential of the Council’s newly created Community Solutions Service to add value and opportunity to delivering health outcomes;

(iii)  The DPH’s focus on the issue of serious youth violence, especially in Chapter 1, which has been set out against the backdrop of a significant increase in serious youth violence involving assaults with knives and noxious substances and the need to break the effects of domestic violence and abuse;

(iv)  Chapter 2 set out the challenge to provide the support our children need to become more resilient to mental health issues and the day-to-day role that teachers, social workers and other professionals need to play in this;

(v)  Chapter 3 highlighted the use of devolved powers to deliver better health and care outcomes for our residents and the challenges in establishing an accountable care system based on ‘place based care’ that evolves our thinking beyond care to one that has concern for the causes of poor health rather than the effects;

(vi)   Chapter 4 reminded the Board that it is now the fourth year for the Public Health Grant and reviewed the evidence and analysed how the Grant has been used to contain or reducing the costs of health and social care without negative effects on health outcomes and the returns against expenditure;

(vii)  The challenges that 10,800 extra homes at Barking Riverside will provide in future health care provision and the progress made in regard to the Barking Riverside NHS Healthy New Town initiative to help “design in” health and modern care from the outset and a how the learning from many initiatives could be rolled-out to other areas of the Borough to shape places to radically improve population health, integrate health and care services, and offer new digital and virtual care fit for the future;

(viii)  Agreed that Chair would invite a group of young people that she has been working with to address a future meeting of the Board.