Agenda and minutes

·         Councillor Moeen

Members are invited to declare at this stage of the meeting, the nature and existence of any relevant disclosable pecuniary or personal interests in the items on this agenda and to specify the item(s) to which they relate.

Personal interests were declared as follows:

• Councillor Sheth – Lead Governor of Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust and a number of educational bodies as detailed on the public website
• Councillor Matin – employed by NHSE
• Councillor Ethapemi – spouse employed by NHSE
• Councillor Collymore – member of palliative care end of life steering group
• Councillor Rajan-Seelan – spouse employed by NHS
• Councillor Smith – employed at Royal Free Hospital

To hear any deputations received from members of the public in accordance with Standing Order 67.

There were no deputations received.

To approve the minutes of the previous meeting as a correct record.

The minutes of the meeting on 25 January 2023 were approved as an accurate record of the meeting.

There were no matters arising.

To provide the Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee with an update on school attainment, including for Black British Boys of Caribbean Heritage.

Councillor Grahl (Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Schools) introduced the report, which provided a summary of school attainment across the Borough and outlined some of the interventions the Council had taken to assist where results were lower than averages. She felt there were a lot of positives, including an above average attainment for disadvantaged children in the borough. In addition, every Brent school except one had achieved a ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ Ofsted rating. She highlighted the challenges, such as a plateau in attainment in some areas following the pandemic, including the attainment gap amongst Black British boys of Caribbean heritage, and some results below the national average for those on Education Health and Care Plans (EHCPs).

In continuing the introduction, Nigel Chapman (Corporate Director Children and Young People, Brent Council) highlighted that he was confident Brent was one of the best performing local authority areas in the country in relation to Ofsted ratings, which he attributed to the commitment, quality, and strength of school leadership in the borough, despite some of the challenges being experienced within the school system. He listed some of these pressures as the pandemic, workforce issues, additional need demand, and budget pressures. The current focus was on post-covid recovery, including attendance and promoting attendance. The attendance levels of Brent schools were within the top 10 local authority areas nationally, which he believed was a sign of both parental support and school commitment to engagement. There were plans in place to improve those areas of challenge and he felt the overall position was strong.

The Chair thanked Councillor Grahl and Nigel Chapman for their introduction. Several headteachers from different schools were in attendance at the meeting, and the Chair invited comments from them individually to explain what they were doing in relation to attainment within their own schools.

Georgina Nutton (Headteacher, Preston Park Primary School) explained that the main focus at Preston Park Primary School was on the curriculum, ensuring it was effective, fit for purpose, and relevant for all the children at school. This focus included training for staff on subject knowledge and knowledge cascades to ensure that the way the school taught was delivered in a high quality and purposeful way, personalising the learning within the classroom to ensure every child had access to that learning.

Jayne Jardine (CEO and Executive Headteacher, The Rise Partnership Trust) highlighted that all special schools in Brent were rated as ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted except one, which was being supported to improve by the local authority. The Trust’s special schools were offering a highly individualised curriculum for children with complex needs, including providing integrated therapy, with behavioural practitioners working in every classroom to ensure all pupils were able to access the learning. During the pandemic, special schools had remained open as they were offering education to the most vulnerable pupils in Brent, with pupils attending on a full or part time basis. This had enabled a level of continuity for pupils going forward. She concluded by highlighting that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

To update the Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee on children’s mental health and wellbeing, including an update on CAMHS.

Councillor Grahl (Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Schools) introduced the report, which she highlighted was an area of considerable past challenge and public interest. CAMHS was a relatively new service nationally which had struggled with large increases in demand, particularly since the pandemic, and long waiting lists in many boroughs. The report highlighted that the waiting list had reduced substantially over the previous few months, and the Thrive model was being implemented to provide early intervention and prevent ill mental health from escalating and affecting other areas of young people’s lives. As a Council, Brent favoured this early intervention and multi-disciplinary approach and welcomed feedback from the Committee on working with partners to accelerate the programme. Nigel Chapman (Corporate Director Children and Young People, Brent Council) added that it was acknowledged there were issues with CAMHS waiting lists nationally, but that mental health and wellbeing support was not available via CAMHS only, with many children not requiring that level of intervention.

The Chair thanked Councillor Grahl and Nigel Chapman for the introduction and invited comments and questions from those present, with the following issues raised:

The Chair invited the headteachers present to respond to how schools were implementing their mental health support offer. Jayne Jardine (CEO and Executive Headteacher, The Rise Partnership Trust) highlighted that schools across Brent were doing a lot of work in the mental health and wellbeing arena, including attending national training offered by DfE. Schools were rapidly improving their processes and procedures and recognising the high importance of mental health for pupils and families. She highlighted the national campaign ‘no shame, no blame’ in supporting the work of schools on mental health.

Georgina Nutton (Headteacher, Preston Park Primary School) advised the Committee that the most prevalent mental health conditions they were seeing at Preston Park Primary School were anxiety and depression. The school were focused on creating the conditions necessary to enable children to talk openly about mental health, which stemmed from its vision for every child to be safe, happy and kind. The school had a strong vision and values running through the curriculum, including the hidden curriculum of pastoral support, emotion coaching, and language and communication with their children. In addition, the school worked with many external agencies, such as ‘Place 2 Be’, which was the counselling service. In particular, the school was working on upskilling staff and ensuring all staff were trauma trained.

Judith Enright (Headteacher, Queens Park Community School) added that, at Queens Park Community School, since the pandemic, there had been a sense of young people not having a trusted adult in school as that relationship had been disrupted over the 2 periods of lockdown. The school had needed to rebuild those relationships. She also commended the work of Family Wellbeing Centres, acknowledging that parents were in their own mental health crises and Family Wellbeing Centres had been offering parenting courses and support groups which in turn helped young people with their own mental health. Those Centres engaged many  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

To present the Committee with an overview for childhood and seasonal immunisations.

Dr Melanie Smith (Director of Public Health, Brent Council) introduced the report which provided an update on childhood and seasonal immunisations in Brent. She explained that the arrangements for immunisations were national and determined by the Health and Social Care Act 2012. The Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) gave independent recommendations on immunisations schedules, that NHSE then implemented. Dr Melanie Smith believed that the independent advice from JCVI had stood the country in good stead to have a world class immunisations programme.

In further explaining the arrangements for immunisations, Dr Melanie Smith highlighted that NHSE were responsible for the commissioning of immunisations and providers were generally GPs for both childhood and seasonal immunisations, although recent years had seen an increased role for community pharmacists in delivering immunisations programmes. The exception to that was the school-aged programme for immunisations, which was provided in schools by a specific workforce commissioned by NHSE. Within Brent, that workforce was provided by Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) were responsible for providing expert advice to NHSE, in particular on outbreaks or potential outbreaks of vaccine preventable diseases such as the case recently with Polio.

At present, the Integrated Care Board’s (ICB) role around general practice was largely one of quality assurance and development, and, in time, NHSE’s responsibility for commissioning would be devolved to ICBs. There was also the newly established borough-based partnership, which did not have responsibility for immunisations but did have responsibility for addressing health inequalities and who had taken it upon themselves locally to make immunisations and addressing health inequalities within immunisations a priority. The local authority public health role for immunisations was one of independent challenge and assurance, and the Health and Wellbeing Board in Brent had recently discussed immunisations in January 2023 to assure themselves. Dr Melanie Smith summarised the discussion at that meeting, where the Board reflected, with the input of local GPs, on the significant challenges that local primary care services were facing. Local GPs had made developments and initiatives to improve access to vaccination, including weekend clinics. The Board also recognised the shortcomings in the official statistics for childhood immunisations, specifically the fact that the official statistics did not take account of deprivation or ethnicity. The Board had also discussed the variety of experiences and beliefs that communities within Brent held around immunisations, with some views informed by a historic experience of inequalities and structural racism within the provision of public services. Lastly, the Board had looked forward to an increasing flexibility in the local response to immunisations which they hoped to see as a consequence of delegation of the immunisations responsibilities from NHSE.

The Chair then invited Susan Elden (Consultant in Public Health, NHSE) to report the headline findings for Brent. Susan Elden informed the Committee that Brent had similar levels of vaccination rates to the London region, which had been impacted since the pandemic and had declining rates of immunisation. There was now an uptick  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

To present the findings and recommendations of the Social Prescribing Task Group to the Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee.

The Chair invited Dr M C Patel, member of the Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee Social Prescribing Task Group, to introduce the report. Dr M C Patel began by thanking the members of the group for their contributions and George Kockelbergh (Strategy Lead – Scrutiny, Brent Council) for his support. There were 5 principle recommendations to the report, and he hoped they would help to propose a way forward for how Brent delivered some of the aspirations it had for communities around reducing inequalities in access. The purpose of the task group was so that social prescribing became embedded in Brent and seen as an integral part of everyone’s work. In introducing the report he summarised the 5 recommendations.

Councillor Nerva (Cabinet Member for Public Health and Adult Social Care) thanked Dr M C Patel for summarising the work of the Task Group, and highlighted that it had been a very interesting learning experience for himself as the Cabinet Member and for Senior Officers to understand the opportunities for social prescribing.

Phil Porter (Corporate Director Adult Social Care and Health, Brent Council) added that, as Co-Chair of the Brent Integrated Care Partnership Executive, the group that would be overseeing the implementation of the recommendations, he wanted to thank the task group for the work. He highlighted that the ICP was ready and excited to take on the challenge.

The Chair thanked those present for their contributions and invited comments and questions from the Committee, with the following issues raised:

The Committee highlighted that the report detailed the relative deprivation amongst the different wards and asked whether funding would be allocated accordingly. Tom Shakespeare (Integrated Care Partnership Director) advised that the ICP had been doing a review of services locally and were looking at making a case for levelling up where it felt there was precedent to do so. This was not specific to social prescribers and adjusting the allocation of those, but there was an opportunity to look at Brent’s wider services as part of that levelling up agenda and ensure that all staff across the system were trained in social prescribing principles and making every contact count.

While Committee members acknowledged the need for areas of deprivation to have access to social prescribing, they highlighted that there were individuals in more affluent areas that were also in need of social prescribing. Dr M C Patel agreed that the need for access was not limited to areas of deprivation and that affluent individuals could be lonely and isolated as well. The purpose of the exercise was to look at if there were more resources that could be put in and whether the current offer was effective and value for money, as opposed to taking away services from elsewhere.

As no further issues were raised, the Committee RESOLVED:

i)              To agree the contents of the report.

To provide the Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee with the 2022-23 recommendations tracker.

Noted.

To provide the Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee with an update on the work programme for 2022-23.

Noted.

Notice of items to be raised under this heading must be given in writing to the Head of Executive and Member Services or her representative before the meeting in accordance with Standing Order 60.

None.