Agenda item

The Director of Community Participation and Prevention (DCPP) presented a report to update on the progress of the in-depth scrutiny review into the potential of the Voluntary and Community, Faith and Social Enterprise (VCFSE) Sector.

The key themes that persisted throughout the scrutiny review focused on reducing health inequalities and recognised the progress of the Council and its partners’ work on Place with an active role in shaping strategy and service delivery.

A series of recommendations were provided as part of the review; these included:

·  The importance of a continual relationship between the Health and VCFSE Sectors. The power of collaboration beyond the traditional commissioning of service delivery alongside the ability to promote opportunities holistically, was highlighted.

·  Developing community and capacity, which required the sector and system as a whole to work together to be successful.

·  The usefulness of sharing information between and across the VCFSE Sector. Examples such as training sessions on bid writing to build capacity, raise awareness of changes, place and localities, as well as creating aware of developments could contribute to reducing health inequalities overall.

·  The creation of a stronger common culture regarding language between Health and VCFSE Sectors to reduce barriers to entry, and

·  Efforts to increase the longevity of funding opportunities as opposed to short-term funding. However, the challenges relating to this during the current financial climate were recognised.

Whist the outcomes and recommendations arising from the review were supported by the VCFSE and reflected feedback and input, one of the learning points for any future reviews was to ensure a full co-designed approach was taken from the outset to maximise mutual benefit and buy-in.

A series of questions and comments from Members and others at the meeting arose from consideration of the review report as presented which provided an insight into the recommendations surrounding the collaborative approach to reduce health inequalities as follows:

·  Overall, there was a positive reflection and willingness from the Health Sector to engage with the Council and the VCFSE sector to improve health standards in Barking and Dagenham. By emphasising the importance of minimising silo working to broaden the understanding of the VCFSE, targeted outcomes would be enabled with a variety of perspectives.

·  The Committee highlighted from the recommendations the need for further data as a means of transparency in service delivery, in both qualitative and quantitative measures. This would strengthen collaboration which was desired by residents in the Borough.

·  On a question on the possibility of delivering the listed recommendations, the locality model was mentioned as a measure which would facilitate such changes. Working alongside partners would enable the identification of commonalities and effective strategies, within localities and cross-localities when creating models to improve patient health and wellbeing. The DCPP pointed out that the Council system was one that also supported collaboration, sustainability, and flexibility.

·  Further, the Chair identified that patients tended to access healthcare services in extreme circumstances. A locality model would help the decline of such trends as better access to healthcare services would improve outcomes for local residents. In that respect understanding the success of recent GP pop-ups compared to the delivery of traditional GPs was important to make health services accessible for everyone.

·  Organisations such as Together First and LifeLine agreed that co-production and collaboration contributed to the success of reducing health inequalities, and such measures should be replicated and expanded accordingly.

Elspeth Paisely the Community Resources Health Lead on the Review explained that the Sector were keen to work collaboratively with the Council and its Health Partners, recognising that each sector had its own skills set to bring to the table to help make the review a success. She made the point that both the other partners should take the time to see the value the VCFSE could bring to the partnership.

The Cabinet Member for Adult services whilst supporting the recommendations recognised the challenge to deliver things in a different way. She referenced the emerging localities model, which was key to any success, emphasising that all partners needed to work together at pace to make the necessary changes albeit each did things differently. The DCPP concurred with this view adding that the Council and its Health partners needed to recognise the VCFSE in whatever we deliver and that the review recommendations had been developed with sufficient flexibility in mind to deliver those positive outcomes.

Accordingly, we have:

(i)  Agreed the final report and recommendations,

(ii)  In line with the agreed procedure for scrutiny reviews requested the DCPP to develop a formal action plan describing how the recommendations will be implemented, and

(iii)  Provide the Committee an update report in six months on progress against the report recommendations.