Issue - meetings

This report updates the panel on the following three programmes of work, and outlines the key aims, current areas of focus, progress and achievements, issues and/or risks, and future priorities in relation to each:

·  Be Well B&NES; a Whole Systems Approach to health improvement

·  Social prescribing (including the Active Way)

·  Sexual and reproductive health strategy and future commissioning proposals

The Public Health Consultant(AL) outlined the following areas from within report in relation to ‘Be Well B&NES – A whole systems approach to health improvement’. 

·  Be Well B&NES is a new Whole Systems Approach to health improvement in Bath and North East Somerset. It has been developed, and will be owned and delivered, by a collaborative network of partners including healthcare providers, educational settings, leisure providers, Council departments, and community organisations.

·  Two well attended network events have been held and enabled a wide variety of partners to come together to think about how we can do health improvement better across B&NES.

·  Be Well B&NES aims to take action on the biggest preventable risk factors for ill health, health inequity and premature death including obesity, tobacco, physical inactivity and the harmful use of alcohol and drugs. These risk factors are closely linked with emotional wellbeing and contribute to a wide range of health conditions including cancer and heart disease.

·  Studies have shown that Whole System Approaches work; when we tackle health issues across and at deeper levels of the system, we see better results.

·  Two network groups are proposed to bring together system stakeholders with relevant interest and expertise. One network group will focus on a geographical community and one on a children and young people’s setting. These networks will co-develop and deliver action plans enabling prioritised actions across different levels of the system. A third operational delivery group will be created to ensure a universal health improvement approach is delivered, and to take forward targeted actions, for example improving the reach of training.

·  This is an iterative way of working; regular review will enable the network groups to develop and change in response to the system. It is likely that over the ten-year span of Be Well B&NES, we will shift focus and work across several different areas and settings, learning from successes and challenges.

·  The approach we have used in Bath and North East Somerset is based on the Whole Systems Guide for Obesity commissioned by Public Health England. We have been supported in the process of developing the framework by academics at the University of Bath.

Councillor Paul Crossley asked how the success of the programme will be identified, how would they monitor any long-term benefits and have any targets been set.

The Public Health Consultant(AL) replied that this a slightly different way of working although targets for individual based interventions would be set. She added that the project will seek to look at the reasons behind the actions that have been taken.

She said that there could be common factors such as access to facilities, transport needs or support as to why these issues are occurring. She added that they have heard from Community Partners in the preliminary stages of the programme and they will now seek to hear the views from the communities themselves.

She said that action plans will be developed as work progresses.

Councillor Crossley asked if any  ...  view the full minutes text for item 31