Agenda item

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.