Agenda item

Report of the Chair, Councillor Caan

The Chair, Councillor Caan introduced the report of Liz Gaulton, Director of Public Health and Wellbeing which provided an update on the outcomes of the joint virtual meeting of the Coventry and Warwickshire Place Forum and Health and Care Partnership Board held on 15^th July 2020.

The report indicated that the main aims of the session were to:

·  reflect on the experience and learning for the health and wellbeing system from the Covid-19 pandemic;

·  understand how the pandemic has affected our local communities;

·  share plans for ongoing virus management and restoration and recovery; and

·  provide key business updates.

The meeting was a valuable opportunity for system leaders to regroup and to start to have wider conversations about the implications of Covid-19 for work together as a wider health and wellbeing system and to begin to consider the route forward.

Key themes emerging from the questions and discussion included:

·  The significance of the potential long-term impact of Covid-19 on local communities and the imperative to work together, coherently, and take both collective and organisational responsibility for addressing health inequalities

·  The importance of the Test and Trace programme as a long-term priority in managing the ongoing pandemic and addressing consequent inequalities

·  Communications and engagement, and the need to work with communities and build trust to ensure key prevention messages resonate and are ‘culturally competent’, particularly for more vulnerable population groups

·  Rapid increase in digital healthcare (telephone and video consultations) and the need for proper evaluation of the impact and implications for different communities

·  Seeking assurance regarding support for care homes in preventing and managing outbreaks, and around the impact of changes to health service delivery, including outpatients, maternity and phlebotomy.

There was a clear theme running through the meeting of the need to deepen the understanding of the local population and be intelligence-led in the  response and recovery plans; and that partners needed to work cohesively as a system, across organisations, recognising the potential of this combined influence to address the social, economic and environmental impacts of the pandemic on population health and to address inequalities.

The following next steps were agreed:

·  Ensure that the achievements, challenges and lessons learnt from the system-wide response to the pandemic were captured and harnessed to inform future activity

·  Use the Coventry and Warwickshire Covid-19 Health Assessment to inform recovery, restoration and reset plans as a system, in places and in organisations

·  Work collectively as a system to ensure that priority was given to addressing inequalities in outbreak management and recovery plans

·  Re-emphasise the system commitment to health and wellbeing in its widest sense by ensuring our population health model was the framework for all outbreak management, prevention and recovery activity

·  Support development of place recovery plans, working together with local communities to tackle inequalities and improve population health.

The Board noted that the next meetings of the Place Forum and Health and Care Partnership Board were scheduled to take place on 3^rd November, 2020. The proposals for the November Place meeting would be developed and submitted to a future Board meeting.

RESOLVED that:

(1) The outcomes of the joint meeting of the Place Forum and the Health and Care Partnership Board on 15^th July 2020 be noted.

(2) It be noted that the proposals for the November meeting of the Place Forum will be submitted to a future Board meeting.