Agenda item

NHS Health Checks

Report of the Director of Public Health.

Minutes:

6.1

The Committee received a report of the Director of Public Health regarding the delivery of the NHS Health Check Programme that had been carried out in Sheffield since 2012.

 

 

6.2

Present for this item was Karen Harrison, Health Improvement Principal, Sheffield City Council.

 

 

6.3

Karen Harrison stated that the NHS Health Check programme was a risk assessment and management five year rolling programme aimed at preventing or delaying the onset of cardiovascular diseases including diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease and strokes.  The checks include monitoring height, weight, blood pressure, body mass etc., for all eligible residents in England aged between 40 and 74, who currently do not have any pre-existing conditions, for people who might not realise that they have a high risk factor, but calculate whether they could be at risk of cardiovascular diseases over the next 10 years. 

 

 

6.4

The programme began in Sheffield in 2012 and was delivered solely by and within GP practices according to former Local Enhanced Service Level Agreements between Public Health at NHS Sheffield and individual GP practices. In 2017, an open tender process was introduced and the successful provider, Primary Care Sheffield, has delivered the NHS Health Check Programme since then.  Ms. Harrison stated that Primary Care Sheffield operate a targeted approach to reducing health inequalities by offering health checks to those most at risk due to ethnicity, those living in areas of deprivation, people with severe mental health illness or learning disabilities and people with previously recorded high blood pressure levels but no further action had been taken towards further investigation and the subsequent prevention of cardiovascular disease. It was important for Public Health to have access to patient records so that they are able to deliver the programme as effectively as possible. She said that recently dementia awareness has been extended to all people receiving a health check, rather than previously when it was just people over 65 who received the information.  Results have shown that Primary Care Sheffield was contracted to carry out 7,500 health checks per annum and this target has been met.  This contract does however, come to an end in August, 2020 and is currently out for tender.

 

 

6.5

Members made various comments and asked a number of questions, to which responses were provided as follows:-

 

 

 

·                     75 out of the 83 GP surgeries in the city offer health checks to those eligible.  For patients where health checks were not available, Primary Care Sheffield offered health checks at one of the out-of-hours Primary Care Hubs where qualified and specially trained staff were able to carry out the checks.  Sheffield Public Health have looked into other facilities where checks could be carried out i.e. at pharmacies or other suitably accessible places, such as mobile units or leisure centres.  A pilot scheme has been launched at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals offering Health Checks to its staff, but as yet, there was no data available of the take up.  The Council was also looking into how its  Occupational Health Service could roll out the service to its staff.  Some businesses have similar schemes and offer health checks as a benefit to their staff, but details of this were not known. 

 

 

 

·                     BUPA offer health checks, and also an online GP service was available at a cost of £125.  It was felt that more investment was needed to roll out the programme so that the service could be offered to more people, but due to the resources available it was felt that Sheffield was meeting the target required.

 

 

 

·                     Members raised concerns that there was a discrepancy in the number of health checks offered and the number of referrals to weight management programmes and the smoking cessation service. It was stated that this was an area of concern, but the target to deliver was being met and training was being given to health care professionals to assist them in identifying patients who were eligible, but were unaware of the programme and the preventative measures available.

 

 

 

·                     The target to deliver health checks to 7,500 people in Sheffield was being met, and the percentage of public health grant spent on the programme offered good value for money compared to other local authorities in the Yorkshire region, which spend a higher percentage of their budget on health checks but did not perform as well as Sheffield.

 

 

 

·                     National data was available regarding how other local authorities in England were carrying out health checks in their areas and a breakdown of this would be provided to Members.

 

 

 

·                     It was felt that the right model was being used in Sheffield to offer the service to as many people as possible, but perhaps the logistics of this could be changed as the community outreach budget in 2012, which the model was initially based on, was significantly higher than as it is today.

 

 

6.6

RESOLVED: That the Committee:-

 

 

 

(a)       thanks Karen Harrison for her contribution to the meeting;

 

 

 

(b)       notes the contents of the report and the responses to the questions raised; and

 

 

 

(c)        feels that more thought could be given to this, perhaps engaging with existing networks and using equality hubs to get the message across about the programme.

 

Supporting documents: