Agenda item

The Council received a presentation concerning the Sheffield Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2013-18, given by Tim Furness, Director of Business Planning and Partnerships, Sheffield Clinical Commissioning Group and Joe Fowler, Director of Commissioning, Sheffield City Council.

Tim Furness summarised the structure and role of the Sheffield Health and Wellbeing Board and considered how the Board brings about change through influence, commissioning and work programmes relating to specific areas, such as Health, Disability and Employment or Food and Physical Activity.

He outlined the themes of the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA), which was the means by which the current and future health, care and wellbeing needs of the local population are assessed.

Joe Fowler addressed the Health and Wellbeing Strategy and how it would make a difference through the integration of health and social care, working to reduce health inequalities and a focus upon on the wider determinants of health. He also outlined how the Health and Wellbeing Board engaged with people in Sheffield.

Members of the City Council asked a number of questions to which responses were given, as follows:

In relation to access to health care, the Board wanted to make sure that there was the same access to healthcare of a high quality, wherever people lived. There were issues for some people in terms of real or perceived barriers to accessing health care. Resources and spending would be targeted to reduce health inequalities and there was intervention to tackle the incidence of particular health conditions.

In relation to integration, the challenge was to bring together the resources of the respective health and social care organisations through open-book discussions. There were potentially greater economies and efficiencies that could be created by working together, although it was not certain that these were adequate given the financial constraints.

The Director of Public Health was a Member of the Health and Wellbeing Board and the model of Public Health in Sheffield was such that it was embedded in the Council. The Director of Public Health also had lead responsibility for the JSNA. The City was largely in line with national policy with regard to the integration of health and social care and, where it was actually ahead of national policy development, it was for the partners in the City collectively to describe what they were doing in terms that were recognised by national Government. Whilst there were national policy and legislative constraints, there was much that could be achieved within those constraints, for example, the introduction of a Selective Licensing scheme in Page Hall, which was the subject of a forthcoming report to the Council’s Cabinet. There were other areas in which housing conditions affected peoples’ health and where action was possible, such as prevention of damp. Public health expertise might also help shape advice that was given to tenants.

Health inequalities were presently an area of focus for the Health and Wellbeing Board and were likely to be so in the future. Community prevention and intervention were important elements in tackling health inequalities and a risk stratification approach was being used to identify information that was held by GPs and others to ascertain who was at risk of declining health and what action can be taken. Some activity could be taken though a local action approach and using peer support.

The Clinical Commissioning Group had assumed the former Primary Care Trust (PCT) commitment to tackle health inequalities. It was a relief to see that the allocation formula which the NHS England had adopted included recognition of health inequalities in terms of deprivation. Sheffield had not had funding taken away and it was considered that the representations made by the City had been heard.

The Council noted the presentation on the Sheffield Health and Wellbeing Strategy and the responses to questions now raised and thanked Tim Furness and Joe Fowler for their presentation.