Agenda item

Report of the Director of Public Health

The Board received a report which requested that the ‘Healthy Policy & Practice’ domain of the Health and Wellbeing Strategy be considered.  The domain had three key areas of focus, that is, Making Every Contact Count, Community Involvement and Engagement and Creating and Embedding Health in all Policies.

The Board received a presentation and officers sought views on:-

·            The strengths and opportunities for the work programme;

·            The challenges, threats and risks for the work programme;

·            Partners commitment to delivery;

·            Measurement of success.

In relation to Making Every Contact Count, it was commented that in terms of infant mortality and safer sleep, maternal vaccinations and mothers who did not speak English were also relevant so it would be possible to target resource in a much smaller area.  This feedback was welcomed and was the sort of information that officers were looking for.

A member of the Board questioned which staff would be targeted for this training as her expectation was that it would be to those in departments most directly affected.  The officer commented that this was one of the challenges but potentially all staff would receive the training and be able to give the right advice and or signpost correctly.

A member of the Board stated that it was important to break down barriers in terms of mental health and domestic violence, particularly in some sections of the community where there was hesitancy in discussing such issues.  It was suggested that contact with temples, mosques, churches and synagogues for example could be via a newsletter and ask them to invite officers/ professionals to visit the communities and to train their volunteers.  This suggestion was welcomed as whilst staff were currently being used as the asset to deliver the messages this was the route officers would wish to take.

In response to a question about the delivery partner, the Managing Director of Harrow Borough Based Partnership indicated that GP receptionists were a first point of contact and therefore a critical workforce in terms of training and delivery of key messages.  The offer to make those connections was welcomed.

Continuing with the presentation, officers sought clarification on the level of commitment that could be given by partners.  Reference was made to the Child Death Review and also from a CLCH perspective the academy which would assist in reaching more of the community staff.  From a NWLH perspective, it was commented that there were two aspects; outreach and presentations that came into the hospital.  In terms of social aspects such as loneliness and nutrition it was about how there could be better links back into the community and how that could be translated into meaningful action.  The Director of Public Health advised that some health inequalities funding had been identified to enable a pilot project in A&E to look at some of these social factors and how they could be addressed.  It was further suggested that it might be helpful to take this discussion to the workforce workstream as part of the partnership which bought together the training and education leads across all statutory partners.  A further suggestion was to link in with Voluntary Action in Harrow who already ran a number of training courses.

Moving on to consider the slide on Community Involvement and Engagement, the officer advised that the emphasis was to build on the work carried out during the pandemic.  It was about understanding who was engaging with who, the opportunities across the partnership and how to coordinate and bring those together in terms of either information, advice or the engagement strategy.  Members of the Board commented that there was work being undertaken by the Council on community engagement and also referred to the Population Health Management programme which was looking at how to develop new services and change existing services.

In presenting the final slide of the presentation, Creating and Embedding Health in All Policies, the Director of Public Health explained that this was an approach to looking at health through cross sector action.  Members of the Board were asked to consider the topics detailed in the slide and suggest any other topics that could be included in the delivery plan.  Following a question from a Member, it was clarified that departments would be asked to consider how what they did impacted on residents’ health and the Board was advised that it was envisaged that every Cabinet report would include a section on health impact but that this was still subject to discussion.

RESOLVED: That the report, presentation and comments made by the Board be noted.