Agenda item

This report provides the Health and Wellbeing Board with an overview of the progress achieved in meeting the Brent Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy objectives, which was first approved by the Board in March 2022. The report also proposes the approach for the Strategy refresh.

Dr Melanie Smith (Director of Public Health, Brent Council) introduced the report, which provided a status update of progress against the commitments made in the Health and Wellbeing Strategy and suggested a way forward. In introducing the report, she highlighted the following key points:

·         Members were reminded that the current Health and Wellbeing Strategy had been shaped by extensive community engagement which specifically focused on asking residents about inequalities in health and what they thought could and should be done about inequalities. In response to that engagement, the Board had defined 5 key themes for the strategy: healthy lives, healthy places, staying healthy, healthy ways of working, and understanding, listening and improving.

·         Against the 5 key themes, Board members committed to a number of actions that residents had asked of the Board and the paper detailed where progress on each of those commitments were.

·         There was a breadth of activity taking place and positive progress had been made on most actions. Officers highlighted that much of the data was qualitative rather than quantitative, this would be addressed when looking at ways forward.

·         Officers proposed that the next steps, through each Council department and Integrated Care Partnership (ICP) Executive Group, was to undertake a review of which of the commitments had been met, which had become business as usual, and which may no longer be relevant. Each Council department and ICP Executive Group would be asked to identify 1-2 new commitments, including quantifying those commitments and identifying how the Board would know whether they had been met by providing a set of metrics to measure against. Those commitments should then be incorporated into each service areas’ planning processes for the 2024-25 year.

The Chair then invited contributions from those present. The following points were made:

·         The Board was pleased to hear about the installation of an accessible changing place facility at Vale Farm Leisure Centre. Dr Melanie Smith highlighted that the future expansion of additional changing places in other locations was dependent on securing additional funding. 

·         The Board noted that the report detailed improved access to parks and events for people with disabilities, and asked whether the working group set up to progress this work included adults who were disabled and had considered what barriers adults with disabilities using parks and event spaces faced. The Board was advised that the work was currently child focused, but there were plans to expand that to involve adults, which was an area that had not yet been worked on. It was agreed it would be helpful to discuss this work with the Disability Forum to ensure this was done through co-production.

·         The Board was pleased to hear about the installation of a wheelchair accessible swing in one of the parks in the borough but noted the comment in the report that it had elicited a mixed response. Officers explained that the facility of the swing was welcomed, however this had highlighted other accessibility issues with access to the surrounding areas that needed to be addressed.

·         The Board felt the paper demonstrated some good examples of initiatives aimed at children and young people, such as the oral health bus which was award winning.

·         The Board highlighted the importance of ensuring the Council was doing all it could to maximise engagement with hard to reach groups using the institutional knowledge it had gained during the pandemic. For example, embedding public health initiatives in the Brent Hubs was essential as they were the Council’s main mechanism for signposting.

·         It was felt that the report highlighted the importance of cross-departmental working, such as the need for public health to work closely with the Environment and Leisure Team to prioritise the accessibility of green spaces, active travel and cycling infrastructure. This went beyond the Council, as it was important to work collaboratively with key community partners and NHS stakeholders. Dr Melanie Smith highlighted that the next step would be to engage colleagues across the Council and ICP Executive Groups to ensure a joined up approach. It was hoped that when new priorities were presented, the Board would challenge officers to demonstrate that joint working. A multi-agency group had been established in the past 6 months, which met regularly and was made up of colleagues from public health, Brent ICP, and Environment and Leisure. This group aimed to take that partnership working to the next stage.

·         The Board highlighted that there was a reluctance from residents to seek out routine health checks, vaccinations and dental check-ups and asked what more was being done to encourage take up of those preventive services. Dr Melanie Smith agreed that the uptake of a range of preventive health services in Brent was poor, but highlighted that the high demand evidenced by the number of parents presenting with their children to the oral health bus was an indication that people did see these services as important. Public Health had been using both quantitative and qualitative intelligence from engagement activities to make the case to the NHS for improved access to services through resourcing.

·         The Public Health Team would return to the Health and Wellbeing Board once the Strategy refresh was completed.

RESOLVED: To note the update.