Agenda and minutes

To receive any apologies for absence.

Apologies were received from Paul von der Hyde, Peter Lewis, Katherine Nolan and Dr Berge Balian.

To receive and note any declarations of interests in respect of any matters included on the agenda for consideration at this meeting.

(The other registrable interests of Councillors of Somerset Council, arising from membership of City, Town or Parish Councils and other Local Authorities will automatically be recorded in the minutes: City, Town & Parish Twin Hatters - Somerset Councillors 2023 )

No declarations of interest were received.

To approve the minutes from the previous meeting.

Resolved that the minutes of the meeting held on 23^rd July 2024 be confirmed as a correct record.

The Chair to advise the Committee of any items on which members of the public have requested to speak and advise those members of the public present of the details of the Council’s public participation scheme.

For those members of the public who have submitted any questions or statements, please note, a three minute time limit applies to each speaker and you will be asked to speak before Councillors debate the issue.

No public questions were submitted.

To receive and consider a report.

The Chair invited Lou Woolway, Service Director – Public Health, Somerset Council, to present. It was explained that it is a systems approach that could help drive forward the work of this Board.

The approach consists of developing a learning infrastructure to share information as projects continue to move forward. The Plymouth Alliance was shown as a successful outcome of this approach.

Homes and Horizons, a project in Children’s Services has trialled this system working productively.

The Chair then invited the Board Members to ask any questions. Following points were raised:

• Importance of tailored approach for individuals along with factoring in human behaviour to connect the project together with pre-existing approaches to avoid confusion for service users.
• Risk of ending up on a twin track and so keen to connect with other system thinking approaches
• Proposal to reflect on the Board’s role and work as good systems steward to improve lives, improve health and well-being and to tackle inequalities across our systems annually.
• Possible role for People Board in System Organisational Development.
• Suggestion to pilot a model to demonstrate the approach and then roll out into other places.

To receive and consider verbal updates from SROs on work to date and agreed priorities.

The Chait invited SROs to give verbal reports on their workstreams.

To receive and consider a verbal update on Health and Housing.

Health and Horizons – Mel Lock, Executive Director of Adult Services, Somerset Council

• External consultants, Newton Europe, currently in the diagnostics phase for housing.
• The findings of the deep dive diagnostics to be connected to the Public Health Data to formulate the forward plans and solutions. This work should be finished by middle of December 2024.
• The findings would be brought back to the board with recommendations.
• Increase in the number of households supported by temporary accommodation by 63% within the last year.
• Plans to pick up adjoining health issues to focus on prevention and early help.
• Collaboration with MHCLG on the project.
• Somerset ranked 5^th worst in the country for rough sleeping and homelessness – hence the need to progress further with this project and fast.
• Opportunity to trial Systems Learning Approach – Health Impact Assessment as a priority for both streams of activity.

During the discussion, the following points were raised:

• What kind of data is collected and how? – Outreach team goes out, since we tend to know where people usually are in terms of homelessness and rough sleeping. The question asked is – How many people are rough sleeping? And we count the numbers and do it all over Somerset. It is a simple metric prioritised by Central Government to gauge annual stats.
• Data reflecting concerns around children and homelessness? – We don’t think there’s anybody under the age of 18 rough sleeping at the time. We have data about people under 18-25 and stats on children that are 16+ in temporary accommodation.
• Thrive 16+ project supports children and young people between the ages of 16 and 25 who require places to stay.
• Clear definitions of rough sleeping, rough sleepers and homelessness required to support our understanding of how many people are coming into the system (of rough sleeping) and how quickly they are supported.

To receive and consider a presentation on Integrated Health and Care Outcomes and Metrics updates.

Integrated Health and Care Outcomes and Metrics – David McClay, Chief of Strategy, Digital and Integration – NHS Somerset

·         A report was received by the board. There were no questions or queries raised by the board members.

To receive and consider a presentation on System Data and Intelligence.

System Data and Intelligence – Lucie Laker, Chief Digital Data Officer, Somerset ICS.

·         The item was discussed after Agenda Item 10 due to a clash.

·         The Board received a presentation, highlighting two business cases that came to be after an initial draft of Somerset Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) was presented to the ICB board.

·         ICS system wide data sharing agreement has been drafted for signature.  To avoid a long waiting time, the plan is to work in areas where the framework has been signed off. The outcomes would then feed into reports and thus allow for wider membership based on successful results.  Commitment to transparency and publishing our approach to developing the dataset.

To receive and consider a presentation updating the committee on Integrated Neighbourhood Working.

Integrated Neighbourhood Working – Claire Winter, Executive Director – Children, Families and Education, Somerset Council; Jonathan Higman – Chief Executive of NHS Somerset ICB

·         The Board members received a presentation and were supportive of the expanded principles and proposed trellis framework for guiding the approach.

During the discussion, the following points were raised:

·         Frailty – why are we looking at frailty as the first priority? – Testing through a frailty pilot will enable us to test the framework and provide proof of concept.  Potential to improve lives of people already struggling but also potential to release resources tied up in the system to be reallocated to prevention work streams.  Does not automatically mean older people and currently working through definition to inform scope which has the potential to include people with multiple long-term conditions.

·         Further to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) report suggestion that the Integrated Neighbourhood’s approach should then consider economically inactive  – people of working age inactive due to ill health being the most cited reason post-pandemic (national statistic but would reflect the county statistic if worked out), (OBR Report) - – and the support we could provide to them in getting them either back to work or to avoid having them give up their work.

·         Potential to look at the Neighbourhood Working Approach in relation to place-based activities, access to services via public transport etc, to engage people locally and achieve success in communities.

·         Further detail needed to understand how this translates into realityand how this approach is different to what  we are already doing?  Important that officers can see the links and join-up on the ground in terms of what this means in practice.

·         Different communities require different approaches – capturing local knowledge and using it to its full capabilities is a very important piece for the success of this work.

To consider:

1)    Clarification on how mandated functions of the Board is achieved, and,

2)    Development of Forward Plan.

·         Many congratulations to Professor Trudi Grant who has won the Chief Medical Officers National Impact award for her work as a Director of Public Health. This is a prestigious award awarded by the four Chief Medical Officers in the UK.

·         Update on changes to Board membership.

·         Mandated functions of the health and well-being board:

1.    Better care fund has been delegated to David McClay and the Joint Commissioning Board.

2.    SEND agenda has been delegated to Claire Winter and the Children and Families Board.

• Forward Plan for these public meetings and workshops – ideas and suggestions welcomed to bring as agenda items for the next meeting.