Agenda item

Report of the Director of Public Health

The Board received a report which summarised how the commitments from the Health and Wellbeing Strategy would be delivered.

The Board were advised that the Strategy set out plans to report on each of the three domains of Healthy People, Healthy Policy and Practice and Healthy Place once a year.  The report before the Board presented the Health and Wellbeing Strategy delivery plan for Healthy People and the Healthy People domain indicators.  It also set out a proposal that a Senior Responsible Officer (SRO) be identified for each of the strategy domains with the expectation that these individuals would have overall accountability and responsibility for the delivery plan to address the strategy’s commitments, responsibility for coordinating an annual report to, and reporting back to, the Board.

The officer advised that there would be a particular focus on three areas within the delivery plan over the next one to two years but there would continue to be updates to the Board on other areas.  The first focus would be on integration around family hubs with children centres converting to family hubs and neighbourhood resource centres converting to health and wellbeing hubs.  Secondly, there would also be a focus on prevention and around the conversation café.  The third area of focus would be engagement and the commitment to embed population health management approaches within the work undertaken and to codesign the interventions with residents in order to meet their needs.

Members of the Board welcomed the strategy and expressed their support.  It was commented that timeliness and collaboration were critical.  Clarification was sought in relation to the North West London indicators where there appeared to be no data and the Board was advised that in terms of benchmarking there was no relevant data.  The officer undertook to see if it were possible to get this data or to compare performance data with statistical neighbours but noted the Member’s comment that if there were no relevant data it should not be included.

With reference to data a Member asked whether it was possible to receive health related data at ward level and was advised that health and wellbeing ward profiles had been provided the previous year.  The Chair stated that some data was four years old which was not helpful but acknowledged that this may be due in part to the pandemic.  He questioned how policy could be changed if the data before the Board was out of date.

An officer suggested that there needed to be a discussion in terms of violence against women and girls, youth offending and adolescent safeguarding in terms of Board ownership and whether this sat with the Safer Harrow Board or the Safeguarding Children and Adult Board.  He requested this be noted for further discussion.

In response to a question as to why the areas highlighted had been chosen as a focus, the Board was advised that in terms of the integration agenda, prevention needed to be embedded throughout the strategy.

A Member questioned how the difficulties for those residents for whom English was not their first language or were refugees would be engaged with.  He stated that GP practices had previously acted as a form of hub where people could meet but it was now difficult for residents to get a GP appointment.  In terms of understanding Harrow’s communities, the Board was advised that there were a number of initiatives underway including the Conversation Café, Community Champions and around vaccine hesitancy and that it was important to understand the barriers communities faced.  Harrow had a diverse community that may require different services and there was work being done around integration and development of services and steering groups would assist in shaping these. Information sharing was also important.

In terms of GP access, the representative of the Integrated Care Board accepted that this remained an issue that was exacerbated by the workforce crisis, changing demographics and more complex patient needs.  The Board indicated that they would welcome an item for discussion on this topic at a future meeting.

The Board then discussed the role of SRO and identifying who would take on those roles.  It was suggested that this be discussed outside of the meeting so that contact could be made with the relevant officers.  The Chair requested that when considering the Healthy Place domain housing in the private rented sector be addressed.  It was further commented that it was important to have some representation from Housing colleagues.

RESOLVED:  That

(1)            the approach to delivery of the health and wellbeing strategy be endorsed;

(2)            a Senior Responsible Officer (SRO) for each one of the three strategy domains outlined in the report be endorsed;

(3)            the officers identified as SROs following the meeting be reported to the Board for approval.