Agenda item

To provide an update on the community services – integrated neighbourhood team development work stream as one of the Integrated Care Partnership’s (ICP) key work streams.

Tom Shakespeare (Integrated Care Partnership Director) introduced the report, providing an update on the development of Integrated Neighbourhood Teams. The idea behind the teams was to bring together health and care services, wrapping primary care around residents on a geographical basis, based on the 5 neighbourhood connect areas in Brent. This would bring in some of the new roles coming into primary care and build on the foundations of the Brent Health Matters (BHM) programme to have a strong focus on inequalities. The workstream looked to take a whole life approach.

Josefa Baylon (NWL NHS) added that, in order for the teams to be effective, there were 3 key enablers; workforce, including working in partnership with partners, the Council, NHS and voluntary sector; estates and aspirations for the future, including ‘superhubs’; and interconnectivity of digital information systems. Listening and engagement sessions were ongoing, and the next phase of those sessions would be delivered through the Council’s Brent Connects meetings online. Josefa Baylon would join those meetings to get the views and aspirations of the constituents in those neighbourhood areas.

The Chair thanked colleagues for their introduction and invited comments from those present, with the following issues raised:

• The Board queried what the resource implications for the Council and health service were for this workstream. Tom Shakespeare highlighted that the aim of the project was to work within the existing resources around staffing and bring teams together to effectively deliver outcomes for residents. It was anticipated there would be estates and infrastructure costs associated with the work and the Integrated Care Partnership (ICP) would work closely with colleagues across NWL to support that. There were potential opportunities to co-locate services with existing Hubs and Family Wellbeing Centres to minimise additional costs.
• In terms of the ‘end-state’ vision, the Board heard that the work aimed to build on where foundations were already strong, listening to Primary Care Networks (PCNs) and communities about where they felt the teams should be focusing. There was already strong working around diabetes which offered a good starting point. The aim was to start small and build up over time.
• In response to what would happen if a patient found that the PCN their GP was part of was not in the same locality as where they lived, Josefa Baylon confirmed that the plotting of the 51 practices had only identified 7 specific practices that were not geographically aligned. Learning had been taken from other areas of London who had already done this programme and no problems were anticipated from a resident point of view.
• The Board asked what methods of learning were best for hearing the voice of residents. Josefa Baylon advised the Board that real-life stories from residents were the most powerful way of designing the programme going forward to effectively shape the neighbourhood teams.
• There was a discussion about the need for engagement with residents, with HealthWatch representatives feeling that there could be more. Josefa Baylon highlighted that the team had worked closely with officers in Healthwatch Brent on an engagement piece and would want to continue to work with Healthwatch to reach residents. Residents were also reached through the Community and Voluntary Sector, with BHM reaching out to 440 voluntary care sectors within Brent. Carolyn Downs (Chief Executive, Brent Council) highlighted that that there had already been considerable engagement for the project to work with, and as this was a priority area it should be implemented as soon as possible.
• Dr Haidar advised the Board that the project was in its very early stages and congratulated the team for the progress already made. The ICP website was another way of communicating with the wider public to show what was on offer, and there was a lay person from the public who sat on the diabetes project board.

RESOLVED: To note the report and receive an update in January 2022.