Agenda item

Report and presentation of Liz Gaulton, Acting Director of Public Health

The Board received a report of Liz Gaulton, Acting Director of Public Health, and a presentation from Si Chum Lam, Coventry Council, which set out a proposal for a place-based approach for refreshing the Coventry Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA).

The report indicated that the publication of a JSNA, along with a Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy (JHWBS), was a statutory requirement placed on the Board under the Health and Social Care Act 2012. It was a means by which local leaders across health and care worked together to understand and agreed the needs of Coventry residents, and was owned by the Board. It brought together data, information and key health and social care issues and supported the planning and commissioning of health, wellbeing and social care services. The Coventry JSNA had been updated for 2018 with refreshed data; the addition of a colourful set of flash facts outlining data for each theme; and an accompanying set of slides.

The current JHWBS covered 2016-19 and was due for a refresh for the 2019-22 period, which would necessitate a further refresh of the JSNA. It was the intention to move towards a place-based approach for the JSNA to inform the development of the next JHWBS. This reflected recent research evidence, developments and policy direction nationally which had seen a move towards recognising that health and care services based around natural geographies of populations between 30,000-50,000 people would offer populations a much more complete and less fragmented services.

The Board were informed that Warwickshire County Council had developed a placed based approach to their JSNA which had been positively received. This was a significant departure to the traditional whole population, thematic approach. Learning from Warwickshire, developing a place-based JSNA for Coventry would involve the following:

·  identification of suitable geographies to be the local area building blocks. Warwickshire had 22 JSNA geographies which were profiled in stages over several years;

·  each area to have an average population of 25,000, defined by geospatial software and stakeholder consultation;

·  boundaries designed to meet stakeholder needs as far as possible with partners being committed to using these areas for strategic planning purposes;

·  producing data at the local geography level through a profiling tool developed by the Insight team at Warwickshire; and

·  creating locally focussed profiles each with a local champion or sponsor and lead officer. Work to be owned by a local stakeholder group and supported by an analyst.

This move would benefit the services that worked jointly with Coventry and Warwickshire, particularly the Place Forum, the Coventry and Rugby CCG and the acute hospital trusts. It would also create new opportunities including providing support towards increased joint working between the two public health teams.

The Board noted that the footprint of the eight recently formed Family Hubs in the City could possibly act as a suitable geography for Coventry. Based on Warwickshire’s experience, a profiling tool could be made flexible enough to allow partners to access data and create statistical profiles to support multiple needs including commissioning decisions, family hubs, out of hospital localities, and the transformations of children’s social care.

The presentation provided an explanation of what the JSNA was and how it related to the JHWBS; informed of the forthcoming refresh of the JSNA and JHWBS; and provided information on the key facts and figures from the latest JSNA on population and migration, housing, skills and education, economy and business, crime and violence, life expectancy, vulnerable children and young people, mental health and wellbeing, physical wellbeing, long-term conditions, demand for care, and infectious diseases.

Members raised a number of issues in response to the report and presentation including:

·  Support for the inclusion of community information and community assets within the JSNA

·  Support for the place based approach to the JSNA with a request for clarity

·  A concern that different organisations used different geographical areas when using the place based approach

·  The importance of taking community opinions on board when determining geographical locations

·  Further information about what was included in the data relating to quality of housing and the causes of poverty

·  Clarification about how the design phase would determine the places which would also consider service delivery

·  A concern that some of the statistics covered the period three years old

·  Clarification that the approach to keeping the latest up to date information on the website would include relevant dates.    

RESOLVED that, having reviewed the updated JSNA with 2018 data:

(1) The work towards a place-based JSNA to inform the next refresh of the Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy (JHWBS) be endorsed.

(2) Local sponsors and lead officers in each geographical area be identified so that areas for development identified through the JSNA can be developed into local priorities and action plans.