Agenda item

To describe the process of community engagement which shaped the current Health and Wellbeing Strategy and its five themes and provide an update on the progress against the commitments of the strategy. The report describes the approach the Health and Wellbeing Board will be taking to update the Strategy for 2024-25.

Dr Melanie Smith (Director of Public Health, Brent Council) introduced the report, which provided an update on the Brent Health and Wellbeing Strategy. In introducing the report, she highlighted that the Health and Wellbeing Strategy belonged to the Health and Wellbeing Board which brought together the Council with the NHS and Healthwatch. It was a requirement to have a Health and Wellbeing Strategy, and Brent’s earlier strategies were very focused on health and care, but the current strategy reflected a far greater process of community engagement resulting in a much broader strategy not just covering the work of the Council and NHS but a much wider perspective of action. There were 5 themes within the strategy, and the report updated against those. Brent Health and Wellbeing Board had recently reaffirmed their endorsement of the 5 themes and were now engaged in the process of refreshing the commitments.

The Chair thanked Dr Melanie Smith for her introduction and invited comments and questions from those present, with the following issues raised:

The Committee felt the report was missing information about outreach work in schools which they saw as central to the strategy. An example was given in Kilburn, where Camden’s air quality initiative was being introduced in school. Dr Melanie Smith agreed that the approach would fit well with Brent Council’s existing air quality strategy and was something that could be explored with the air quality team. She explained that any particular aspect that was felt to be missing could be addressed when officers engaged Brent Children’s Trust to reaffirm their commitments and strengthen the input from CYP.

The Committee highlighted that the report gave a raw figure for rates of smoking in the borough and asked whether there was any further breakdown by community, so that the Council could target communities with heavier smokers. Dr Melanie Smith explained that there was not robust data in relation to smoking communities but there was a qualitative understanding of which communities were smoking, with a higher prevalence of smoking in Eastern European communities and Latin American communities as well as mental health service users and B3. In response to that organisational knowledge, engagement was happening with those communities.

The Committee also asked what the strategy would do to support residents chewing tobacco to stop. They were advised that there was a stop chewing service as well as a stop smoking service which had been publicised and officers had tried to education people in conjunction with an oral surgeon about the dangers of chewing tobacco. Unfortunately, the uptake of the stop chewing service had been disappointing, and members were asked to let officers know of any support they could offer to encourage people to stop chewing. 

The Committee was pleased to see the efforts to improve access to toilet provision in the borough and asked what more could be done to improve that. Dr Melanie Smith expressed disappointment that this was a part of the strategy that had not been able to progress due to availability of resource. The Council had explicitly approached the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) about whether public health grant funding could be used for the purpose of improving toilet provision and been told it could not, so the Council was looking at alternative ways to move that forward. Councillor Nerva (Cabinet Member for Public Health and Adult Social Care) expanded, informing the Committee that One Kilburn had got a successful community toilet scheme running along the High Road with various outlets signed up to allow access to toilets, and this had been highlighted for potential roll-out in other parts of the local authority.

In relation to Council estates and food growing, the Committee highlighted that many estates in the borough were not Council owned but were owned by Housing Associations, and asked what work was being done with Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) to advance food growing on estates. Dr Melanie Smith advised the Committee that officers would look to explore this through the Food Strategy. Progress with the Council’s own estates had been disappointing, and there was a need for the Council to lead by example on this, which it was hoping to progress on St Raphael’s Estate. The Council was working with Sufra on the Food Strategy, specifically on growing on estates, and would hesitate to approach RSLs until the Council was in a position of having delivered something akin to what Sufra had done to ensure credibility. Sufra was leading in that space currently and were partners in the Food Strategy. One thing that had been heard clearly from the community was that the Council should be facilitating the work and not driving it, so while it was hoped there would be progress on this work by summer, it was dependent on the community signing up to that timetable. The Committee added that one way to encourage residents to get involved would be for the Council to publicise the sites and locations that had been identified for the project.

Continuing to discuss food, the Committee asked how the Council would work to increase the sign up of healthy catering considering the high number of fast food outlets on high streets in Brent. Dr Melanie Smith advised that, rather than going out randomly to engage fast food outlets, officers were focusing on particular areas. In Harlesden, there was a fear amongst retailers that if they were the only outlet in a row of fast food outlets offering a healthy option that it would make them less competitive, but evidence and case studies showed it did not harm the bottom line and in some cases could be beneficial, so officers were building relationships and persuading outlets in a geographical approach. The commitment from outlets was variable, and providers who had been supportive could be listed outside of the Committee.

The Committee asked how this work aligned with work around diabetes which Brent Health Matters (BHM) were leading on and were advised that the healthy catering commitment and allied work focused on the supply side, whereas BHM looked at managing demand and consumer education.

In response to how GPs were supported to contribute to the strategy, the Committee were advised that BHM was developing connections with GPs, and the Integrated Care Partnership (ICP) had recently appointed a local GP as the Clinical Lead for BHM, which had resulted in a step-change in the engagement of GPs within the BHM programme.

The Committee asked how officers would measure the impact and outcomes of the strategy and the 5 themes going forward. Dr Melanie Smith highlighted that the first set of commitments of the current strategy had been a narrative which had been right at the time and mostly delivered, but there was currently no quantitative measure of that impact. Going forward, when the commitments were refreshed, officers would be talking to Council departments, Integrated Care Board (ICB) colleagues, other partners, and Brent Youth Parliament about making those commitments measurable, which would be one of the big changes in the refreshed strategy. In response to whether Healthwatch would be engaged in that process, Dr Melanie Smith confirmed they would be, highlighting that the initial engagement for the strategy had been largely delivered by Healthwatch and officers were grateful to them for the work they had done.

Members flagged an issue in Chalkhill Park that had been raised by park users regarding beer cans littering park benches which impacted the commitment to improve usable green spaces in Brent. They also advised of a small allotment in the area which might be a good location for food growing projects. Presenting officers thanked members for the intelligence.

The Chair thanked those present for their contributions and drew the item to a close.