Agenda item

To provide an update on progress and next steps in developing a coordinated approach to neighbourhood working between Brent Council and the Integrated Care Partnership (ICP).

Dan Shurlock (Head of Place Leadership, Brent Council), Jonathan Turner (Borough Lead Director – Brent, NWL ICB) and Will Holt (Change and Improvement Programme Lead, Brent Council) introduced a paper providing an update on progress in developing a coordinated approach to neighbourhood working between Brent Council and the Integrated Care Partnership (ICP). In presenting, they highlighted the following key points:

• It was felt that Brent had some pieces of neighbourhood working in train already, with some parts more mature than others, such as Brent Health Matters (BHM) and Public Health campaigns. There was also work being done to implement additional parts of the model, including Integrated Neighbourhood Teams with campus-style health hubs and more proactive prevention alongside local voluntary sector organisations (Radical Place Leadership), and a focus on piecing those workstreams together.
• Jonathan Turner highlighted some areas of achievement, including the Child Health Hubs, which had now been set up in all 5 neighbourhood areas with a standardised approach and appropriate referral pathway across all neighbourhoods. There was consultant and GP collaboration with other parts of the community system as well, with consultants out in the community, sometimes virtually, doing appointments for common child health conditions such as asthma and epilepsy. He advised that this was helping to upskill the GP population so that some of those issues that might otherwise have been referred to hospital could now be seen in the community. Links with Family Wellbeing Centres had also been built into referral pathways.
• The mental health pilot had been running across NW10, NW2 and HA9 postcodes, which had been an area of particular focus based on evidence. Community connectors, community psychologists and the Home Treatment Team Outreach Service had all been working together to pilot this outreach approach, and there had been significant activity with over 3,000 residents involved through training, workshops and co-production.
• Some of the neighbourhood health enabler workstreams were around digital infrastructure, estates optimisation, workforce, operational development and leadership. Estate optimisation was progressing with a new hub at Gladstone Park and a further hub in the pipeline in Alperton, and additional investment secured from the ICB to expand GP rooms at Wembley Centre for Health and Care. There had also been estate planning around the neighbourhood campus model, identifying possible sites for each of the 5 neighbourhoods that could be linked together to have Multidisciplinary team meetings and wider contributions from the voluntary sector within that, as well as Council services where appropriate. That was a developing piece of work which would need further input from estates teams to cost options for future bids.
• In relation to Radical Place Leadership (RPL), there was now a dedicated team of people working alongside residents in Harlesden, providing new 1 to 1 relational support and working in a much more preventative way ahead of crises presentations, particularly with people who might be at risk of financial hardship or homelessness.
• A strong presence had also been built to support community settings and build connections, and the team was working with those who might be getting turned away from different settings or who might be engaged with community groups but not Council or NHS services.
• Through cross-partnership working, residents were being connected to holistic support at the right stage, and around 20 residents were currently receiving dedicated support from the wider neighbourhood prevention team.
• Officers were working in a different way alongside community organisations and key community partners in Harlesden to establish the role they could play in neighbourhood prevention work, establishing strong pathways and ways of working for organisations to be a part of the prevention effort, including in areas such as homelessness prevention.
• Another focus was enabling the voluntary sector to better understand Council services to provide support and advice to the residents they worked with day to day, helping to break down barriers between the Council, NHS and voluntary sector.
• The aim of the working together in neighbourhoods approach was to pull all the different programmes together into a consolidated framework, including BHM, INTs and RPL. One of the risks of moving to a neighbourhood approach was that different organisations and stakeholders all developed their own neighbourhood approaches, so it was important to find a way of working that all partners wanted to adopt and commit to in an interconnected way across the different programmes, that brought all services and community assets together as one. Some of these strands of work would be done through Task and Finish Groups who would work to get this right in practice, focused on using data and insights collectively and ensuring community bridging roles were working effectively.
• The Joint ICP Executive on Neighbourhoods and Inequalities would be receiving further reports on this work in February 2026 and officers recommended a future update at a Health and Wellbeing Board meeting following that. It was also noted that further national guidance on the NHS Neighbourhood Health model was awaited and that this would likely include more detail on the role of Health and Wellbeing Boards.

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

• The Board were encouraged by the presentation and looked forward to having further details in April 2026.
• The Board were encouraged by the work being done to engage with housing colleagues, and asked for more detail about the integration with housing at the next update.

As no further issues were raised, the Chair drew the discussion to a close and asked members to note the report. He thanked officers for presenting and showing the partnership work being undertaken and looked forward to further details in the future.