Agenda item

Report of Allison Duggal, Director of Public Health and Wellbeing

The Board received an update report of Allison Duggal, Director of Public Health and Wellbeing on the 2019-23 Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy following a review of progress and priorities at the end of last year and set out the key areas of work that the Board would progress to deliver priorities.

The Council had a statutory duty, through the Health and Wellbeing Board, to develop a Health and Wellbeing Strategy that set out how they planned to address the health and well-being needs of local residents, as identified in the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA).  The aim of the Health and Wellbeing Strategy was to develop a set of shared, evidence-based priorities for commissioning local services which would improve the public’s health and reduce inequalities.  The outcomes of this work would help to determine what actions the Council, the NHS and other partners (now the Integrated Care System (ICS) need to take to meet health and social care needs, and to address the wider determinants that impact on health and wellbeing. 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 Health & Wellbeing Strategy, it was agreed that the short-term priorities would be reviewed and refreshed every 12 to 18 months to ensure that they still reflected the key issues and challenges facing Coventry residents.  During Autumn 2021, a review was undertaken to understand progress against the short-term priorities of the Strategy and to ensure that the priorities were still relevant given the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on our city and residents.  The review of the Health and Wellbeing Strategy priorities was informed by evidence from a range of sources, including needs assessments that had been conducted as well as survey data, workshops with stakeholders, a senior partner workshop, learning from the current Strategy priorities and feedback from public consultation.

The Health & Wellbeing Strategy set out three strategic ambitions aimed at improving the health and wellbeing of residents, which together encompass the long-term vision for change in Coventry. The three strategic ambitions were:

•  People were 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 identified, in order to make a tangible difference in the next 18 months, by working together in partnership. The report provided an update on progress for each priority and the key areas of focus over the next 6-9 months:

•  Loneliness and social isolation

•  Young people’s mental health and wellbeing

•  Working differently with our communities

Utilising the review process and feedback from the engagement process, it was agreed that the existing short-term priorities of the Health and Wellbeing Strategy were correct, but that there were a number of areas that need to be intensified.

These were as follows:

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

·  Mental health for adults as well as children

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

·  The need for co-production to achieve the priorities and the importance of engaging with the community to influence and design solutions.

·  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 focus of loneliness and social isolation should not just be on elderly people but on the wider community and should utilise volunteers to support this.

RESOLVED that following consideration of the update report the Board:

1. note the outcomes from the Health and Well-being Strategy review and key messages from the engagement process
2. note the progress against the Health & Well-being Strategy