Agenda item

Report of Carole Furlong, Director of Public Health.

The Director of Public Health presented an Update on the Health Visiting Scrutiny Review Recommendations.  She confirmed that actions against the recommendations in her paper were all on track with key progress being made on a new combined contract for health visiting and school nursing (0-19) which was awarded to Central and North West London (CNWL) in July 2018, where feedback had been positive so far.  By October 2018, all previous staffing issues had been resolved and all inductions (including equality training) were completed.  More recently, the Council won a bid to help target Romanian women who had some of the highest rates of smoking during pregnancy.

The Director for Public Health also went through the performance graph on page 68 and explained that the key performance indicators (KPIs) were mandated by the Department of Health.  She informed the Sub-Committee that statistics on children who had a 12 month review would appear to drop due to availability of data because of long-term sickness of a staff member in the team, but that this would be resolved by May 2019.  There was also an anticipated delay in the National Child Measuring Programme due to the recruitment of new staff.

Members asked the following questions and received the following responses:

What health support is given for home schooled pupils and what types of health conditions do they face?

The Director of Public Health advised that parents may opt to home-school their children due to a severe disability, terminal conditions or parental choice, but that the exact numbers were unknown as the data was held by the Children and Families section.  However, where known home schooled children were given access to the same school nurse advice as pupils in mainstream schools.

Dental disease among children in Harrow was at 33% – what facilities are available in school to tackle this?

The Director of Public Health explained that the public health team had taken the opportunity to change the model for oral health promotion when NHS England retendered their contract for community dentistry – the previous contract having been inherited by the local authority.  The new programme was developed in collaboration with Public Health England (PHE) and Queen Mary Westfield College, University of London, and it provided training and resources to school nurses, health visitors, early years staff in both children centres and private nurseries and childminders.  As a result, oral hygiene was now regarded as everyone’s responsibility rather than the sole responsibility of a single health promoter.  Due to the success of this initiative, Harrow Council would be joining a PHE campaign in May/June 2019 to promote Harrow’s achievements as an example of what could be done in neighbouring boroughs.  Additionally, money from the Government’s Sugar Tax was distributed back to the Council’s Healthy Pupil Capital Fund where work is underway to install water fountains in schools and Affinity Water would be providing refillable water bottles to show pupils the link between protecting the environment and healthy living.  A launch date for this would be confirmed soon and the Director of Public Health would email invitations to Members of the Group.

Members were also advised that dental health was only monitored every two years by a national dental survey in children under 5 but that earlier indications of success were to be measured using Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) data on tooth extractions under general anaesthetic in children and attendances at Accident & Emergency for dental pain.  The latest survey results would be released at the end of 2019 and were expected to provide more details about dental health in Harrow - where additional sampling had taken place to identify groups in the population with higher rates of dental disease.  Separately, work was also being done to promote visits to the dentist by younger children so that they could build positive associations with this health service.

How much income had Harrow received from the Sugar Tax?

The Director of Public Health confirmed that a one-off payment of approximately £180k had been received for Community Schools in Harrow and that voluntary aided and private schools received their funds directly.  Surplus funds remained and would be used to fund healthy food schemes such as school gardens.

What work is being done to tackle obesity in schools?

The Director of Public Health explained that the work done on preventing tooth decay was helping to tackle obesity as it was linked to the issue of sugary foods.  There had also been a session at Glebe Primary School, attended by the Mayor of London, where demonstrations of sugar content in food took place and the concept of a ‘daily mile’ (through walking or running) was promoted.  Most schools participated in this scheme and results had shown that it led to good behaviour and improved concentration among pupils.  The national ‘Food Smart’ app, which used  barcodes on food packaging to identify fat/sugar content, would also  assist young people in making better dietary choices.

Have there been any cases of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Harrow?

There were very few cases of children at possible risk of FGM being referred to the MASH (Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub).  Most cases in Harrow were generally identified in women at maternity units.  The Local Safeguarding Children’s Board (LSCB), health professionals, schools and some voluntary sector groups are part of a project group looking into FGM including audits to identify additional data available.  Nationally, there had only been one successful prosecution in an FGM case in the UK.  Schools had raised awareness by distributing ‘FGM information cards’ to girls which outlined contact details of where they can access support or require help to tackle this.

RESOLVED: That the report be noted.