Agenda item

Report of Liz Gaulton, Director of Public Health and Wellbeing (to be circulated)

The Board considered a report and presentation of Liz Gaulton, Director of Public Health and Wellbeing which provided a stock-take of progress against the 2019-23 Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy and outlined the plan for the development of the new Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy, including the Consultation Plan.

The report indicated that the current Health and Wellbeing Strategy was approved in 2019, following consultation and engagement with key stakeholders and members of the public. As part of the development of the Strategy, it was agreed that the short-term priorities would be reviewed and refreshed every 12 to 18 months to ensure that these still reflected the key issues and challenges facing Coventry residents. The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the city and residents and the proposed changes within the health and social care system had further strengthened the need to refresh the Health and Well-being Strategy to ensure that the priorities contained within it remained relevant.

The Strategy set out three strategic ambitions aimed at improving the health and wellbeing of residents which together encompassed the long-term vision for change in Coventry as follows:

People are healthier and independent for longer

Children and young people fulfil their potential

People live in connected, safe and sustainable communities.

As part of the JSNA and consultation process, a number of short term priorities, were also identified to make a tangible difference in the next 18 months by working together in partnership as follows:

·  Loneliness and social isolation

·  Young people’s mental health and well-being

·  Working differently with our communities.

A stocktake of key outcomes and learning from the current Strategy had been undertaken, the details of which were set out in an Appendix to the report. The report summarised progress and key outcomes with the three short term priorities. In relation to loneliness and social isolation, partners had set up a number of initiatives over the last 18 months to tackle this issue.  Health and care partners had worked together during this time to make significant changes in order to adapt the emotional well-being and mental health offer to ensure children and young people’s needs were met during the Covid-19 pandemic including improved access to support and increasing the digital offer available.

Partners had also worked closely with communities to minimise the impact of Covid-19 and co-ordinate the response to the pandemic, with the aim of protecting and supporting vulnerable residents.

There were a number of lessons learnt from these three priorities:

·  Profile and commitment - Board partners had raised their profile and galvanised commitment to work in partnership specifically to address children and young people’s mental health and well-being, work differently with communities and reduce social isolation and loneliness.

·  Population Health model - the King’s Fund population health model had been helpful in mobilising partners around each of the four pillars and highlighted the roles that different organisations could play in delivering the strategy priorities.

·  Stronger partnership working - Across the three priorities, clear benefits had been realised through new collaborations both with organisations that may not historically have recognised their role in contributing to health and wellbeing outcomes, but also directly with communities themselves, with communities playing an equal and trusted part in the city’s response to the pandemic.

·  Demonstrating impact – due to the pandemic, work on developing a performance framework to monitor outcomes and impact had been delayed.

The report highlighted that the refresh of the Strategy priorities would be informed by evidence from a range of sources, including needs assessments that had been conducted as well as survey data, workshops with stakeholders, the senior partner workshop and the learning from the current Strategy priorities. A workshop of senior leaders from across the system had taken place on 30th September, facilitated by the Kings Fund. It was now the intention to carry out a light touch public consultation process on the Health and Well-being Strategy priorities. Details of the consultation plan were set out at a second appendix. Following this consultation, the draft strategy would be submitted to the next Board meeting on 24^th January, 2022, with the final strategy due for publication in the spring.

The presentation detailed the outcomes from the workshop held at the end of September. Key messages were:

The priorities were broadly right, but some things needed intensifying including  how far into some of these issues needed addressing:

·  focus on employment and homelessness as a prevention opportunity: recognising the impact of poverty on the well-being of residents and on next generation (children) esp following changes e.g end of furlough, universal credit and end of ‘no evictions’

·  Mental health for adults as well as children

·  Strengthen working with communities and VCS: important to build on the work undertaken during the last 18 months and continue to unlock the power of local assets by improving the connectivity between the Board and communities and the Board and place based working

·  Need to ensure work in the overlap between priorities e.g. communities and isolation may have a new slant with different communities coming to Coventry i.e. Afghan refugees

The presentation highlighted all the key messages from the session relating to culture and behaviours with Members recognising the strength of partnership working and good progress that the Board had made. Other key messages relating to alignment, leadership and partnership were detailed and centred around how Members could forge forwards together, aligned and in the best possible way for and with communities; how to best lead in a way that ensured the best for residents; and how to unlock the vast assets across Coventry, and articulate this in a way that brought others (communities and staff) on side as equal partners helping to jointly lead this agenda in a meaningful way.

The key next steps were as follows:

(i) Culture and behaviours

·  Develop existing Health and Wellbeing webpages

·  Develop a performance management framework to measure/understand progress and impact

·  Contributions to Forward planner

(ii) Alignment, leadership and partnership

·  Workshop on community paradigm

·  Connectivity to the Integrated Care Strategy – joint discussion with Warwickshire on how the Boards strengthen this.

RESOLVED that, having considered the outcomes and learning from the stock take to inform the Strategy refresh:

(1) The outcomes of the Health and Wellbeing Strategy workshop held on 30th September, 2021 be noted.

(2) The proposed approach to the Health and Wellbeing Strategy refresh, including the Consultation Plan and timeline, be endorsed.