Issue - meetings

·         The Public Health Consultant reported that the Board’s first workshop following the peer review would be held on 20 January 2017. A facilitator for the session had now been secured for this session from the Local Government Association – Andrew Cozens.

·         The Chairman reported that he had met with the minister for Planning & Housing to discuss the lack of attention to health and care facilities within Planning policy. The Chairman had requested that more specific consultation around this area be undertaken. The Chairman hoped to see planning policies that were more geared towards health and care facilities in the future as a result. In addition, Planning officers would be looking through the Council’s Local Plan to ensure that the progress of health & care facilities were not being impeded.

-       The Chairman reported that there was expected to be a 20% rise in births in the upcoming years whilst hospitals were already at capacity at current levels. This rise would need to be funded and resource would need to be identified. He reported that the Council’s Executive would not encourage the use of the Community Infrastructure Levy to fund this, but that resource would need to be found from other sources and from working jointly to develop health and care facilities.

-       The Chairman stated that consideration be given to how developers worked with partners and whether developers should contribute to social care. In order to do this, there would need to be evidence of an impact from a development on health and social care.

-       The Public Health Consultant reported that she was currently developing spreadsheets to assess the impact of the level of housing on health and social care.