Agenda item

All upper tier and unitary authorities in England were required under the Health and Social Care Act 2012 to establish a Health and Wellbeing Board. 

The Medway Health and Wellbeing Board was established in shadow form in 2012, becoming fully operational in April 2013. It brings together key organisations and representatives of the public to work together to improve the health and wellbeing of the people of Medway.

The purpose of this report is to provide information to the Committee on progress made by the Health and Wellbeing Board in 2016/17.

Discussion

The Interim Director of Public Health introduced an update on the Medway Health and Wellbeing Board. It was noted that the Kent and Medway Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP) was a key work area, with a detailed update on this having been provided to the December meeting of the Committee. There had been close working between Medway Council, Kent County Council and the NHS with regard to the STP. Comment had been made upon presentation of the draft document to NHS England, NHS Improvement and the Local Government Association in October that engagement between the local authorities and the NHS was better than anywhere else in the country. Democratic accountability and Councillor involvement had been central to the development of the Kent and Medway STP.

Smoking Cessation was a key area of work. A joint report from the Council, Medway Foundation Trust (MFT) and Medway NHS Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) was presented to the Health and Wellbeing Board in April 2016. This had proposed an approach to encourage and enable more people to give up smoking in order to improve the safety and effectiveness of their care. Following this, a policy had been developed. This had been agreed by MFT and it was anticipated that it would be agreed by the CCG on 25 January. The policy would then be presented to the Health and Wellbeing Board on 2 February in order to seek its endorsement. Smoking prevention featured strongly in the commissioning plans of local health providers for the coming year.

The Committee raised a number of points and questions as follows:

Contribution of the Board to the health agenda: A Member felt it was clear that the Health and Wellbeing Board had been successful in promoting partnership working. However, the extent to which health inequalities had reduced in Medway since its establishment had been minimal and the Member considered that the Board had not made a significance difference to people who became ill. Medway compared badly to other parts of the South East in relation to key health indicators, such as deaths from cancer, heart disease and the overall level of premature deaths. It was questioned what confidence officers had that the Board would be able to contribute to improving performance in these areas. The Interim Director of Public Health said that ensuring that health and wellbeing boards were able to make an impact was a national issue. Reducing health inequalities was challenging due to the number of factors involved. The Interim Director had found co-operation and partnership working between senior leaders in the Council and health partners to be more effective than he had experience elsewhere. The Committee was advised that one year cancer survival rates depended largely on how quickly patients were diagnosed, while five year survival rates were more dependent on the effectiveness of treatment. There was a need to promote screening and encourage people to feel able to present to their GP if they had certain symptoms. Close working with professionals delivering frontline services had a key role to play in reducing health inequalities through education. The Health and Wellbeing Board was an enabler of this and the Interim Director was optimistic of the increasing willingness of organisations to work together. The Portfolio Holder for Adult Services said that the Health and Wellbeing Board enabled health and Council leaders to come together and explained that he had attended a health seminar with 40 health professionals, which was one example of joint working. It was also noted that Healthwatch Medway were Members of the Board and were actively engaging with it.

Education about health conditions and treatment: In response to a Member comment that there was an ongoing need to educate people about the best place to go for treatment for a particular set of symptoms or illness, the Interim Director of Public Health acknowledged that this had always been an issue. Through the contact that service providers had with the public, there was the opportunity for them to provide education, but a member of the public could not be expected to know how serious a particular set of symptoms were and, therefore, which health service they should access. One opportunity was to better educate people who had had a particular illness or condition on where to seek help and how to look after themselves in the event of a recurrence.

Decision

The Committee noted and commented on the information provided in the report.