Davina Parr, Associate Director of Public Health, to update on the transition of public health.
Minutes:
Davina Parr, Associate Director of Public Health, updated on the current position with the transition of public health into the Local Authority. Public health staff had now been located in the council offices at Westfields. The team had identified a number of principles including the importance of integration within the Council, having a clear identity for the public health service and ensuring there were good links to and from health partners.
A Vision had been identified:
“Working together to put population health and wellbeing at the heart of local communities and services in Cheshire East”. There was a Transformation Agenda comprising six enablers and six programmes. The enablers included:
the leadership role;
the workforce;
the strategy – the right action in the right place at the
right time at the right price;
partnerships – including with the Local Authority, Clinical
Commissioning Groups, voluntary and community sector;
resources – ring fenced public health grant; health premium,
from 2015; and
processes/services – effective
joint commissioning supported by the Joint Strategic Needs
Assessment.
The top 6 programmes had been identified as:
Implementation and delivery of the NHS Health Checks programme;
Managing the handover of services moving in and out of public
health;
Developing a sustainable health care public health support system
with the NHS commissioners;
Delivering work programmes for all commissioned public health
services, with a focus on towns of Crewe and Macclesfield;
Developing integrated commissioning models for “risk taking
behaviours” including a review of sexual health services;
Supporting the Ageing Well programme.
Ms Parr explained that under the Public Health premium there was funding available for achieving outcomes – the precise nature of each outcome was not yet known but they were expected to relate to lifestyle areas - there would be 66 for Local Authorities.
In discussing the presentation, the following points were made:
The programmes did not make reference to lifestyle
choices. In response, the Committee was
advised that behind each work programme heading there was a great
deal of detail which would include reference to lifestyle;
When would the Transformation Plan be in the public domain? This
was awaiting confirmation of the funding for public health but it
was hoped would be early in the new year;
In relation to the priority of introducing “systematic and
industrial scale change for maximum health gain” it was
suggested that there was a role for new programmes to be piloted as
well as looking for good practice elsewhere so as not to introduce
untested programmes on a wide scale basis;
There appeared to be no specific reference to wellbeing within the
programmes. In response, the Committee
was advised that wellbeing was included within the Vision and there
were a number of outcomes that related to wellbeing;
There was a vital role for preventative approaches as a way of
improving health and wellbeing and preventing more costly services
later on;
Where were drug and alcohol services to be located? Members were advised that these services were to
become part of the Council’s services as the former Drug and
Alcohol Action Team was being disaggregated between this Council
and Cheshire West and Chester.
RESOLVED: that the update on public health be noted.
Supporting documents: