Agenda item

To receive an update on the development of the Berkshire West Health and Wellbeing Strategy and the associated Delivery Plan.

Sarah Rayfield presented the report on the Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy (Agenda Item 8).

She noted that public consultation on the draft strategy would run until 4 August, with the responses being used to refine the strategy before bringing it back to the Board for approval in September along with the delivery plan. Each of the three local authorities (West Berkshire, Reading and Wokingham) would prepare their own delivery plan. The governance arrangements would also be reviewed and discussions had taken place with the Integrated Care Partnership and the Chairs of the three Health and Wellbeing Boards.

Councillor Martha Vickers asked how the consultation would be promoted so as to engage as wide a cross-section of the public as possible. She also asked if there were sections of the public who the Council seldom heard from and how they could be reached.

Sarah Rayfield indicated that a key objective was to find new ways to engage with local communities, particularly those that the Council did not normally hear from. She highlighted the work of EduCafe and the Engaging and Enabling Communities programme. She also stated that a big part of the inequalities work around Covid-19 and the vaccine was focused on building relationships and developing trust with particular communities. In addition, Community Champions would help to engage with seldom heard communities.

The Chairman noted that this had been discussed at the last meeting. He also suggested that Board Members could help promote the consultation.

Councillor Dominic Boeck expressed his support for the Strategy’s priorities. He suggested that the priorities in the strategy were not in any priority order, but were equally important and interlinked and would benefit from being delivered together.

Sarah Rayfield agreed, but noted that the priority on reducing the difference in health outcomes sat across the other priorities.

Councillor Boeck supported this and noted that the desire to address difference in health outcomes was a driver for a range of other strategies. He highlighted that paragraph 5.3 referred to reducing ‘healthy’ rather than ‘health’ inequalities.

Councillor Vickers asked who was on the Inequalities Taskforce. Also, she suggested that Councillors could help to identify and develop community champions.

The Chairman stated that he had no issue with sharing the membership of the various sub-groups - these would be considered as part of the governance review to ensure they were aligned with the new strategy and delivery plan.

Councillor Jo Stewart stated that she was a member of the Mental Health Action Group in her capacity as Mental Health Champion. She expressed an interest in joining other groups such as the Carers Strategy Action Group. She queried if a vote was required on the options set out in the report. She also asked how far the delivery plan should be progressed if there was a risk that the public consultation might require changes to the strategy, resulting in abortive work.

The Chairman indicated that work was already ongoing in relation to the option in section 6.1 of the report. He suggested that if the result of the public consultation showed opposition to the proposed approach, then the strategy and delivery plan would need to be reviewed. However, the strategy had already gone through a number of public consultation processes and had been agreed across the three Councils, so care would need to be taken if a significant change was needed at this stage.

Sarah Rayfield agreed and noted that the early results from the public consultation on the draft strategy showed support for the strategy’s priorities and supporting objectives. She suggested that changes would be more likely around refinement of the strategy and language.

Resolved that: the report be noted.