Issue - meetings

Background:

The report advised the Cabinet of the statutory requirement for Directors of Public Health to produce an annual public health report, which was a professional statement about the health of the local community. This 2025 report explored the role that sleep played in health and wellbeing and the impact that it had on a range of factors that influenced health: both direct impacts such as making it harder to engage in healthy behaviours; to indirect impacts through employment and productivity. It provided initial findings of work to understand sleep in Medway and the potential impact in health inequalities. It also outlined some ways to improve sleep and reduce the adverse effects of poor sleep and set out how simple measures could be added to existing public health interventions to address the problem.

The report had been previously considered at the Health and Wellbeing Board on 20 November 2025 and by the Health and Adult Social Care Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 4 December 2025. The Cabinet welcomed their comments, which were set out at sections 8 and 9 of the report.

Reasons:

Directors of Public Health have a duty to publish an annual report on a topic relating to the health of the population in their area.