Agenda and minutes

There were no declarations of interest.

The Minutes of the meeting held on 16 September, 2020 were agreed as a true record. There were no matters arising.

Briefing Note of the Director of Public Health and Wellbeing

Councillors K Caan and R Ali, Cabinet Member and Deputy Cabinet Member for Public Health and Sport, have been invited to the meeting for the consideration of this item

The Chair, Councillor Brown introduced the item on Health Inequalities and the link to the ONE Coventry Plan, which referenced people in Coventry having lower life expectancies then the national average. Councillor Brown expressed disappointment that the Cabinet Member was not present at the meeting. 

The Committee received a presentation from the Director of Public Health and Wellbeing. The presentation outlined the following:

·  The COVID19 pandemic had highlighted health inequalities with evidence showing that it would continue to widen existing health inequality gaps.

·  The people worst affected by the virus were generally those who had worse health outcomes before the pandemic.

·  One of the pillars of the Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy was to address the wider determinants of health.

·  There had been a system-wide response to the pandemic. The national NHS response to COVID19 included eight urgent actions on inequalities

·  Seven recommendations had developed by Public Health England to reduce the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on people from Black and Minority Ethnic groups.

·  The West Midlands Combined Authority established a ‘Regional Health Impacts of COVID19’ Task and Finish Group.

·  The Marmot Partnership had mobilised quickly as a whole system to respond to COVID19 and a Call to Action to address health inequalities had been agreed by the Health and Wellbeing Board.

·  Coventry City Council had supported a number of work streams to assist the Economy and Businesses. These included; the management of Government COVID19 grants and support; developing Coventry Employment and Skills Plan: the negotiation of Getting Building Fund for priority capital projects; hosting webinars for Coventry City Council’s Small and Medium Enterprise support programmes and green recovery and the ongoing work of the Job Shop including a Youth Hub.

·  There had been work collaboratively with the Council, private and voluntary sectors to strengthen the business support ecosystem. This included utilising the range of support available for recruitment, grants, bespoke training offers, skills development, redundancy and help with staff wellbeing.

·  Coventry City Council had been working with communities prior to COVID19, however the pandemic had strengthened this work. The work was led through the Community Resilience Team. During the pandemic, five new social supermarkets and ten emergency food hubs had opened, Children had been supported with breakfast and activity packs over school holidays; Community networks had been established; places of worship and faith groups had been supported to enable worship to take place in line with COVID-19  guidelines and Migrant Health Champions had been supporting their communities.

·  There was work taking place to put learning into practice to get the messaging right and to the right places, working with communities to achieve this. A network of over 200 Community Messengers had been established across the City who would deliver COVID-19 and Public Health messages to communities as well as gathering intelligence. COVID-19 Community Advisors had also been recruited and were working across the City.

·  The next steps were outlined. These included a drive to embed health inequalities as a key theme across all our corporate priorities; plans were in  ...  view the full minutes text for item 27.

Report of the Director of Law and Governance

The Committee considered and noted their Work Programme for 2020/21.

Any other items of public business which the Chair decides to take as a matter of urgency because of the special circumstances involved.

There were no items of urgent public business.