Agenda item

Purpose: To raise awareness and understanding of local health issues, highlight areas of specific concern, and to make recommendations for change.

The Board considered the Annual Public Health Report 2024 (Agenda Item 10). The item was introduced by Dr John Ashton (Interim Director of Public Health).

It was noted that the report would be added to the Health and Wellbeing Board pages on the West Berkshire Council website.

Action: Arrange for the report to be added to the Council’s website.

Members thanked Dr Ashton for his interesting report, which was considered to be a good basis for the new Director of Public Health.

There were discussions about the challenges and benefits of social media. It was highlighted that some countries had made effective use of social media during the Covid-19 pandemic to broadcast key health messaging. Also, Reading Borough Council had appointed a PR company to segment the marketplace and target particular groups with key messages and monitor the interaction. Such an approach needed investment.

It was acknowledged how difficult it was for residents to make good choices in the face of commercial promotion of unhealthy options, particularly for families struggling with the cost of living.

The Board recognised that the UK was struggling to maintain progress on a number of health indicators and was heading backwards in some cases and that there was a need for a greater focus on prevention and wider rollout of the Health in All Policies approach.

Officers acknowledged that in many cases prevention was invisible. Good progress had been made in eradicating diseases such as polio and rheumatic heart disease, but the latter was at risk of return due to poor dental health. It was suggested that too much focus had been placed on medical interventions. The advent of safe water had dealt with a number of infectious diseases, and what was needed now was another ‘horizontal measure’ that would address a raft of problems. It was suggested that consideration should be given to the upstream determinants of unhealthy behaviours. These related to the extent to which individuals were in control of their lives. Greater levels of self-control were liked to improved health. Issues such as planned parenthood, parenting support, school readiness, prevention of school exclusions, and work readiness were all considered to be ‘horizontal measures’.

Members highlighted the prevalence of obesity as a concern in terms of its impacts on other diseases, and it was suggested that this could be the subject for a future ‘hot focus session’. It was recognised that this would need a ‘whole system approach’ that made it easy for people to do the right thing.

Reference was made to the recent ‘hot focus session’ on housing and health – it was clear that the cost of dealing with the symptoms of homelessness and poor housing was far greater than the cost of addressing the root causes. The links between poor housing and poor health were clear and it was suggested that an agreed definition of acceptable living standards was needed.

The links between housing and town planning were highlighted and the importance of designing places for people to live in was recognised. It was noted that if dementia patients had the right housing, they could remain in their own homes for 1-2 years longer. Also, the pandemic had highlighted the importance of housing and neighbourhood design in minimising the spread of infectious disease. These issues suggested that a conversation about housing design standards would be beneficial.

Members asked about research in measuring the effectiveness of preventative interventions. It was noted that health economists were mostly concentrated in a small number of universities. It was suggested that evaluation often needed to be multi-disciplinary. An example was given related to ‘youth zones’ where the evaluation had considered a basket of indicators (e.g., educational attainment, teenage pregnancy, involvement with criminal justice, etc).

RESOLVED to note the Annual Public Health Report 2024.