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.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting held on 28 November 2024 are approved as a correct record.

Arising from the previous minutes, it was noted that a youth centre at Braccan Walk was due to open and Councillor Wright requested a briefing note on the progress of this work and the youth service’s engagement work.

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.

There were no applications for public participation.

To advise a refreshed Health and Wellbeing Strategy

Shamarke Esse, Public Health Practitioner (Public Health Intelligence) presented the strategy dashboard which had been developed to present data on key indicators from the Health and Wellbeing strategy for monitoring by the Health and Wellbeing Board and other public bodies.

Arising from questions on the dashboard’s development, the following points were noted:

• As there was rarely time in meetings to examin the dashboard data in detail, it was hoped that members of the board would be able to examine the data in their own organisations to inform decision making.
• It was noted that an upcoming Public Health East Berkshire leadership meeting would be focussing on health intelligence. Grainne Siggins requested to attend this meeting. (Action: Charlotte Pavitt)
• Members requested that in the future strategy, each workstream lead should be able to update on the ‘so what’ relating to the data and its impact.
• The intention was that the dashboard and its data would be accessible to the public, and could be used by voluntary groups to support funding bids. Officers would consider the most appropriate hosting solution for the dashboard to make it publicly available. 
• It was recognised that the Safeguarding Board was not listed as a partner into which the Health and Wellbeing Board fed. Charlotte agreed that while the governance chart was a simplified version and there were some links across, the links and governance between the Health and Wellbeing Board and Safeguarding Board could be strengthened.
• It was noted that the data in the dashboard was already in the public domain, but the collation and interpretation of data was new.
• Members queried how a member of the public or partner might raise a question relating to the data, and officers agreed to consider this as part of the publication and hosting process. (Action: Shamarke / Charlotte)

·        What has been delivered and what is progressing well?

·        Are there any gaps and areas for improvement / emerging issues for the final year of the strategy

Charlotte Pavitt, Director of Public Health led a presentation on the review of the Health and Wellbeing Strategy. Members were reminded of the six priority areas in the current strategy:

• Priority 1: Give all children the best start in life and support emotional and physical health from birth to adulthood
• Priority 2: Promote mental health and improve the lives and health of people with mental ill health
• Priority 3: Create opportunities for individual and community connections, enabling a sense of belonging and awareness that someone cares
• Priority 4: Keep residents safe from COVID-19 and other infectious diseases
• Priority 5: Improve years lived with good health and happiness
• Priority 6: Collaborate, plan and secure funds for local and national emerging new health and wellbeing priorities

Charlotte presented some key data taken from the dashboard to map outcomes referenced in the strategy.

Priority 1: Give all children the best start in life and support emotional and physical health from birth to adulthood

Board members noted indicators demonstrating an increase in anxiety amongst young people in a number of school year groups. However, the data demonstrated that there was no corresponding rise in young people reporting feelings of loneliness.

Members noted a case study from Home Start, who provided a range of parent support groups. In quarters 1 to 3 of this year, 130 families had been supported with feelings of isolation, and 57% of these families were referred onwards for isolation support. Public health were proposing that the review of relevant Home Start programmes and parent groups was rolled into the next year’s plan.

In response to questions, the following points were noted:

• Board members queried how partners supported clients and patients across programmes, for example supporting carers to promote their own physical and mental health in a partnership intervention approach.
• It was commented that partnership data sometimes did not reflect the impact of work through metrics and data. Board members queried what could be done differently to better understand and measure the impact on individuals. 
• It was queried how partners could better use the voice of the child or young person and use this to inform strategic planning.
• Partners commented that it was important to examine the reach of 0-5 year old parent groups, to see who was being reached and who was benefitting from the work.

Priority 2: Promote mental health and improve the lives and health of people with mental ill health

Board members noted an update on the correlation between smoking and mental illness with an increase in the number of smokers with mental illnesses, as highlighted by public health. The causation behind this was complex, but support and quitting rates in Bracknell Forest were good.

Board members also received an update on the Bracknell Forest Community Network and Happiness Hub. The Community Network service had seen an 180% increase in referrals to the service in 2022/23, and a 76% increase in 2023/24. The service offered a person-centred approach with an increase in 1:1 support. Clients who completed  ...  view the full minutes text for item 40.