Agenda and draft minutes

Members are asked to declare any disclosable pecuniary or affected interests in respect of any matter to be considered at this meeting.

Any Member with a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest in a matter should withdraw from the meeting when the matter is under consideration and should notify the Democratic Services Officer in attendance that they are withdrawing as they have such an interest. If the Disclosable Pecuniary Interest is not entered on the register of Members interests the Monitoring Officer must be notified of the interest within 28 days.

Any Member with an affected Interest in a matter must disclose the interest to the meeting.  There is no requirement to withdraw from the meeting when the interest is only an affected interest, but the Monitoring Officer should be notified of the interest, if not previously notified of it, within 28 days of the meeting.

There were no Declarations of Interest.

There were no Urgent Items of Business.

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the meeting of the Board held on 10 September 2024.

The minutes of the previous meeting held on 10 September 2024 were approved as a correct record.

Arising from the minutes, the following points were noted:

• Bracknell Forest vaccination data had been discussed at the East Berkshire Health Protection Forum which showed that the borough had one of the highest rates of RSV vaccination. There were no concerns about vaccination rates across the borough on the whole. Public Health officers had requested more localised data to distinguish any variation across the borough.
• Board members queried what the alternative youthwork model would be following a failed bid to work with South Hill Park. It was agreed that the alternative model would be picked up with Audrey Johnson outside the meeting. (Action: Andrew / Grainne)

QUESTIONS: If you would like to ask a question you must arrive 15 minutes before the start of the meeting to provide the clerk with your name, address and the question you would like to ask. Alternatively, you can provide this information by email to the clerk at committee@bracknell-forest.gov.uk at least two hours ahead of a meeting. The subject matter of questions must relate to an item on the Board’s agenda for that particular meeting. The clerk can provide advice on this where requested.

PETITIONS: A petition must be submitted a minimum of seven working days before a Board meeting and must be given to the clerk by this deadline. There must be a minimum of ten signatures for a petition to be submitted to the Board. The subject matter of a petition must be about something that is within the Board’s responsibilities. This includes matters of interest to the Board as a key stakeholder in improving the health and wellbeing of communities.

No applications for public participation had been received.

To monitor delivery of the Health & Wellbeing Strategy.

Shamarke Esse, Public Health Practitioner (Public Health Intelligence) presented the Health and Wellbeing Strategy dashboard.

Shamarke gave an overview of the work which had been done since the dashboard had been presented at the last meeting.

The Health and Wellbeing Strategy priorities were used as the front covers of the dashboard to give an overview summary, supported by background data on the indicator including any key performance indicators and national benchmarks. The data would be updated quarterly once live. The dashboard output could be copied into partners’ reports and presentations once publicly available.

The dashboard also included programme generated indicators which were tracked by a responsible authority, for example the number of active assets on the community map.

Shamarke advised that the next steps would be to continue to update indicators on the dashboard, and for programme leads to provide update commentary for the dashboard. The data would be refreshed both quarterly and annually. Once complete, the dashboard would be published to a public website, although the hosting arrangements were not yet clear. It was hoped that the dashboard would be complete and publicly available by the next Board meeting.

Charlotte Pavitt, Director of Public Health encouraged all Board members to submit data when requested to complete the dashboard. It was hoped that once the dashboard was complete and well established, the data could be used for forecasting and modelling and to identify any change or deterioration in trends as they arose.

Partners’ training needs would be explored to ensure the dashboard was accessible and usable by partner agencies.

In response to questions, the following points were noted:

• Partners queried whether the dashboard could be publicly published in draft. Shamarke and Charlotte agreed to investigate the possibility, although it was noted that the main challenge remained around where to host the data. (Action: Charlotte Pavitt / Shamarke Esse)
• Board members welcomed the work which had gone into the dashboard, and commented that it would demonstrate the impact of the current and future Health and Wellbeing Strategies.
• It was recognised that qualitative data from Healthwatch and other organisations would be key in supporting the data in the dashboard.  
• It was noted that updating the dashboard once live was very straightforward, and the data would be refreshed regularly with current data.

Charlotte Pavitt gave an update on the existing Health and Wellbeing Strategy priorities.

Most of the indicators were labelled green and had been reported on.

The suicide prevention agenda had taken time to gain momentum across Berkshire due to staff changes, but Board members were reassured that there was a Berkshire-wide suicide prevention group in place with a permanent consultant in public health in West Berkshire to lead on the work for Berkshire. The suicide prevention work had not stopped but had been slowed by staff changes.

The incorporation of a workplace wellbeing charter had not been progressed due to staff turnover, however workforce wellbeing was picked up under the Bracknell Forest Change programme internally. Lots of work was ongoing with  ...  view the full minutes text for item 29.

To receive an update on the Community Resilience Model work.  

Ahead of the refresh of the Health and Wellbeing strategy, colleagues across the public health, communities and voluntary sectors were working to establish opportunities for community empowerment and community-led approaches to building resilience.

The communities strategy was due to be refreshed over the next year to develop resilience and preventative approaches, to help people to work together to stay safe and well.

The new strategy would look to use community spaces such as community centres and libraries to support people in coming together, connecting and forming new community groups in order to promote community cohesion.

The work would be overseen by the new Community Resilience and Cohesion Partnership whose membership would include business, residents and representatives of community groups. The group would be chaired by the cabinet member for Communities and would be closely linked to other partnership boards across the system.

The Thriving Communities programme was a three-year programme jointly funded by system partners which aimed to reduce health inequalities, maximise wellness and increasing self-care and community resilience and transform the relationship between organisations/the system and communities to embed co-design and co-production. The programme was 6 months into its pilot year, and had identified a pilot community to work with in town centre flats. Project teams had been established, a launch session had been held and evaluators had been commissioned to oversee the work.

The Communities work was ongoing alongside the national conversation on the NHS 10 year plan, the consultation on which was ongoing.

The Frimley VCSE Health Alliance comprised four subgroups with aims to discuss Starting Well, Living Well, Ageing Well and Neurodiversity and Autism in relation to the NHS 10 year plan. Bracknell Forest community groups were being encouraged to share their ideas on these subjects in the new plan.

Charlotte, Abby and Phil asked Board members to consider how these programmes could be aligned across Bracknell Forest and what role the Board or individual partners may have in furthering the work.

It was agreed that due to time constraints, this item would be further discussed at a workshop session during the next Board meeting.

To note the priorities, actions and measures presented in the Carers’ Strategy Action Plan

Amy Jones, Head of Strategic Commissioning presented an update on the Carers Strategy 2024-29.

The strategy had been co-produced and had included a 12-week consultation before publication in the summer. A carers partnership board including key stake holders had been formed to hold oversight of the five priorities, co-chaired by Amy and a working-aged carer. 

It was noted that while the Carers Forum would be the first level of governance, it was suggested that the Health and Wellbeing Board could receive a short update on the action plan on an annual basis. Amy agreed to provide an annual update. (Action: Amy Jones/Grainne Siggins)

Members commented that it was important to avoid acronyms in reports wherever possible.

To receive the Healthwatch Annual Report 2023/24

Joanna Dixon, Healthwatch East Berkshire Manager presented the Healthwatch Annual Report which had been published online.

Joanna summarised the work of Healthwatch, including signposting to advocacy services and complaints teams, work in primary schools on a mindfulness day, and engaging with community groups for people with learning disabilities and sensory loss to ensure they received information in an accessible format.

Joanna also drew members’ attention to the Enter and View function of Healthwatch which was a legal statutory function to enter any premises where health and social care was being provided to visit the premises and speak to service users, residents or family members. It was stressed that these visits were additional to the CQC inspections and did not replace them. One Enter and View visit had been conducted at a Bracknell care home, and the report on the visit was published on the Healthwatch website.

The next year’s priorities for Healthwatch would be women’s health, young carers and hospital discharge. A survey on women’s health services was ongoing at the moment.

Paul Beal, Chair of the Healthwatch Advisory Group commented that it was important that Healthwatch focus their limited resources on areas which would make a difference.

In response to questions, the following points were noted:

• Healthwatch priorities were selected by looking at themes and trends arising from public feedback, and a prioritisation survey called ‘What Matters Most’ which was conducted at the start of each year. It was commented that other partners’ data such as the Health and Wellbeing Strategy dashboard was key in this work.
• It was commented that while lots of case studies collated by Healthwatch were confidential, there was also a lot of sharable data which could be used by partner agencies to align priorities.

• Board members commented on the digital access information and asked where this information had been shared. It was noted that Healthwatch had approached primary care services to ask for creative solutions and good practice to ensure that those without access to a smartphone or laptop could still access quality health services. The information had also been shared with CQC and local authority colleagues.
• Board members offered their support in ensuring good feedback routes into their organisations for any information collated by Healthwatch.
• It was clarified that the NHS priority on moving from analogue to digital was not about having less face-to-face contact, and more about maintaining a single patient record and keeping centralised data.
• Board members welcomed the Enter and View initiative for the extra level of assurance.
• It was noted that a consultation was underway on engaging and encouraging access to health services for people with disabilities.

Next meeting in person – 11 February 2025

It was agreed that the next meeting would be an in-person meeting with an additional hour to allow for workshop time.