Agenda and minutes

The Chair, Councillor K Caan, welcomed everyone to the meeting, in particular, representatives of the voluntary and community sector, B Taylor from Settlement Support CIC and N Ndlovu from Coventry Asylum and Refugee Action Group (CARAG).

There were no declarations of interest.

Minutes of the meeting held on 24^th March 2025 were agreed and signed as a true record.

There were no matters arising.

Verbal update of the Chair

Chair’s Update

The Chair, Councillor Caan, updated the Board on the following matters:

• The Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment was closing today; feedback from which would be analysed and the report circulated to the Health and Wellbeing Board.
• The new ‘building blocks of health’ online training course developed by HDRC with other teams.
• The forthcoming Godiva Festival and the August Sports Fest in Broadgate: both fantastic opportunities to engage with people in Coventry and encourage them to get active.
• The Coventry Mile in Memorial Park, which 1,000 children had taken part in last week.

The Board requested the online link to the HDRC Building Blocks of Health training course.

RESOLVED that the Health and Wellbeing Board note the Chair’s update.

Verbal report of the Director of Public Health and Wellbeing

The Board received a verbal update of the Director of Public Health and Wellbeing who advised that Public Health had been working with the Children’s team on the Families First Programme, to bring in a new model of working meaning everyone would have a named person to link with.  Migrant week had taken place successfully and the Healthwatch and the Substance Misuse contracts had now gone live, both of which would contribute to improving health and wellbeing in Coventry.

Significant change had been seen within the system since the previous Board Meeting and the officers would be looking at partnership working in the forthcoming NHS 10 Year Plan.

The Annual Public Health report for Coventry had won a prize with the Association of Directors for Public Health, which focused on the contribution of migration to Coventry’s communities, the health and wellbeing of the city and the vulnerabilities within the migrant communities.

Members of the Board, having considered the content of the report and asked questions and received information from officers on the following matters:

• There had been some recent IT issues which meant that accessing the new sexual health service for young people had been difficult however, officers were working in partnership to resolve this.

The Board requested:

1. The Annual Public Health Report for Coventry be circulated with the minutes of this meeting.

2. A response regarding the C-Card contract be provided to the Corporate Parenting Board.

RESOLVED that the Health and Wellbeing Board note the update from the Director of Public Health and Wellbeing.

Verbal report of the Chief Executive of the ICB

The Board received a verbal update of the Chief Executive of the Integrated Care Board (ICB) who explained the following:

• There had been a number of changes announced within recent months including the abolishment of NHS England with a move across to the Department of Health and Social Care, and the requirement for the ICB to reduce costs by 50% which had led to a piece of work to explore options which were:
  • The preferred clustering option would be within the West Midlands Combined Authority, although the ICB would be guided by the independent advisors, Price Waterhouse Coopers.
  • Clustering with Hereford and Worcestershire had scored the highest and despite Coventry’s concerns, this had now been signed off by the Secretary of State.
• Information regarding timescales was not forthcoming however, the go ahead had been given to commence works in the next few months.

Members of the Board, having considered the content of the report and asked questions and received information on the following matters:

-  The ICB had been asked to produce a medium-term financial plan within the next 3 months, which would embed place-based working. Concerns had been raised regarding different funding arrangements

-  If possible, a report would be brought back to the Board regarding transitional arrangements.  Resources and protection around funding were key.

-  The ICB was clear that more progress was required around the children’s agenda and ICB officers were clear that SEND and safeguarding commitments would be maintained.

-  Cuts of 50% were to the administrative function of the ICB only.  More information regarding how the ICB retained focus at a local level would become apparent as transitional arrangements were worked through with staff.

The Board also received and noted a letter, which was circulated at the meeting, to the Secretary of State from the Leader of the Council and the Mayor of the West Midlands regarding concerns relating to the proposed clustering of Integrated Care Boards.

RESOLVED that the Health and Wellbeing Board note the update from the Chief Executive of the ICB.

Report of the Consultant in Public Health and the ICB.

The Board received a Briefing Note and presentation of the Head of Immunisations, Coventry and Warwickshire Integrated Care Board regarding vaccination rates and project work to increase uptake in Coventry.

Immunisations protected people and communities from serious infectious diseases, enabling people to live healthier lives.  Improving uptake of vaccinations could help to reduce hospital admissions and demand on the NHS.

Responsibility for immunisation was fragmented with both NHS England (NHSE) and Coventry and Warwickshire Integrated Care Board (ICB), holding lead roles on NHS immunisation delivery.

The NHSE West Midlands Screening and Immunisations team provided system leadership, support and oversight of ICB commissioning and delivery of NHS vaccinations.  The ICB commissioned services including managing the introduction of new programmes, monitoring providers against national performance indicators, quality improvement and reduction in inequalities.  This included leading on the management of clinical queries and incidents.

The main providers of immunisations in Coventry were GP practices (including practice nurses).  Pharmacies, Maternity and School Age Immunisation Services (SAIS).  Coventry City Council public health team had an assurance function and influencing role in local commissioning and ensured that the plans, approach, communication and delivery mechanism were community focused to maximise uptake across the diverse populations within the city.

For Coventry and Warwickshire, assurance was provided through the Health Protection Committee.

The ICB held a regular immunisation board with local system partners to monitor uptake rates, review service delivery plans and ensure the programme was meeting the needs of the communities.  Monitoring of vaccine coverage was essential to identify possible drops in immunity and take action before levels of disease increased.

Immunisation was a key priority set out in the recently published Coventry and Warwickshire Health Protection Strategy 2025-2030.  The ambition was to improve coverage across the life course.  The ICB also had a local immunisation Strategy, setting out the future direction of work including key priorities, performance indicators and targeted actions.

Data showed that vaccine uptake in Coventry across all age groups could be improved.  Coventry consistently underperformed compared with the national averages for vaccination uptake, particularly for boosters and second does.  Rates reflected a broader UK-wide decline in vaccine coverage.

Inequalities in immunisation uptake still persisted.  In Coventry, low vaccination rates were linked to areas of higher deprivation.  GP practices with larger list sizes and practices located in areas with higher proportions of ethnic minority groups.

The most up to date published immunisation uptake data in Coventry had been circulated in the Appendix attached to the report.  The level of uptake needed for herd immunity depended on the vaccine – primarily due to differences in effectiveness and the disease’s transmissibility.

Childhood vaccine uptake fell below the recommended level of 95%

Pneumococcal (PPV) and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccines protected against infections that were both leading causes for hospital admission.  Vaccine uptake for PPV in adults had improved and met or exceeded England averages in all age groups.  A mixed picture was seen for the shingles vaccine with rates in those over 75 being higher than the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

Report of the Director of Public Health and Wellbeing

The Board received a verbal report of the Director of Public Health and Wellbeing regarding the forthcoming Health and Wellbeing Board Development Day scheduled for the morning of 25 September 2025.

The Chair encouraged all Members to prioritise attendance.

RESOLVED that the Health and Wellbeing Board note the update from the Director of Public Health and Wellbeing regarding the Health and Wellbeing Development Day on 25 September 2025.

Report of the Director of Care, Health and Housing

The Board received a report of the Director of Adult Care, Health and Housing regarding the Better Care Fund – 2023/25 review and 2025/26 planning approval.

The Better Care Fund (BCF) commenced in 2015 with an aim of bringing together the NHS, social care and housing services, so that older people and those with complex needs could manage their own health and wellbeing and live independently in their communities for as long as possible.

It was based on the concept of a pooled budget between Integrated Care Boards and Local Authorities with one party agreeing to ‘host’ the pool which was managed by a s75 legal agreement.  The Coventry BCF pool was hosted by Coventry City Council and overseen by the Coventry Care Collaborative.

The pooled fund associated with the 2023/25 plan totalled approximately £148m, which delivered against 104 separate lines of expenditure across Health and Social Care. Areas of expenditure included social care, learning disability support, dementia, carers, disabled facilities grant and support to enable effective hospital discharge.

The agreed priorities to support the 2 BCF objectives to 1) enable people to stay well, safe, and independent at home for longer and 2) provide the right care in the right place at the right time, were as below along with a summary of progress over the plan period:

Priority One:  further implementation and take up of the Integrated Care Record in Social Care – will improve information sharing and access to records held in health and social care and ultimately enhance patient/resident experience.

Priority Two: improvement on Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) processing and activity to improve ability to support people at home through adaptions, including those to temporary accommodation.

Priority Three:  further development and implementation of the ‘Improving Lives for Older People’ programme focussed on a whole pathway improvement from admission avoidance through to discharge.  A core objective of this programme was to provide health care and support to people at home and prevent issues of ‘flow’ through reducing the need for people to transfer to hospital in the first place through greater integrated working and approaches.

Delivery against the metrics at the end of 2024/25 was as follows:

-  Rate of avoidable admissions per 100k population – target met

-  Emergency hospital admissions due to falls in people aged 65 and over per 100k population – target met

-  Percentage of people, resident in the HWBB area, who were discharged from acute hospital to their normal place of residence – target met

-  Long term support needs of older people (aged 65 and over) met by permanent admission to residential and nursing care homes, per 100k population (65+) – target met

Summary of the 2025/26 BCF Plan

The Better Care Fund Plan for 2025/16 required submission to NHSE by 28^th March 2025.  As there was not an available Health and Wellbeing Board meeting to correspond with this timescale, this update on the 2025/26 plan is retrospective.

Once submitted, the BCF plan goes through a regional assurance process  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.

Report of the Population Health Policy Officer, V Castree

The Board received a report of the Population Health Policy Officer, V Castree regarding the Health and Wellbeing Board Membership 2025/26.

The Health and Wellbeing Board had the power to amend their discretionary membership to reflect the evolving Health and Wellbeing Partnership across the city.

To enable voluntary and community sector representation at the meetings, an appropriate organisation, based on the agenda items, would continue to be invited to each HWBB meeting.  This approach enabled the Board to hear a wide range of VCSE partner voices.

The quorum was one half of the members plus one member and updating the membership would help the meetings to be quorate.

Members of the Board were able to nominate substitutes to attend the meeting, providing notice of one hour prior to the meeting start time was given.

RESOLVED that the Health and Wellbeing Board:

1)  That the Health and Wellbeing Board agree the membership for 2025/26 outlined in Table 1 and that Voluntary and Community Sector representation continues to be through invitations to organisations with links to agenda items.

Verbal update of the Chair – Health and Wellbeing Board Members Headline Updates

The Board received a verbal update of the Chair of the Health and Wellbeing Board requesting Members feedback, guidance and support on any future items or themes.

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

There were no other items of public business.