Agenda item

Mark Adams, Director of Public Heath (South Tees) will be in attendance to provide an update to the panel on the Health and Well-Being Strategy, the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) and the Annual Report 2021-2022.

Craig Blair, Director of Commissioning Strategy and Delivery at the North East & North Cumbria Integrated Care Board (NENC ICB) will update the panel in respect of the NENC ICB, a new statutory NHS organisation, as launched on 1 July 2022.

The Director of Health (South Tees) was in attendance at the meeting to provide an update to the panel on the Health and Well-Being Strategy, the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) and his Annual Report for 2021-2022.

The panel was advised that the Health and Well-Being (HWB) Strategy outlines how the Health and Well-Being Board aims to improve the health and wellbeing of people in South Tees and reduce inequalities. It was emphasised that health inequalities are not the fault of individual people, they are the result of social, environmental, and economic factors. The Strategy aimed to tackle complicated problems which would not be solved by any single agency. The three proposed Strategic Aims were as follows:-

Start Well: Children and Young People have the Best Start in Life

Live Well: People Live Healthier and Longer Lives

Age Well: More people will live longer and healthier lives

The focus would be on working in partnership on cross-cutting principles and delivering its vision through: addressing inequalities, integration and collaboration, use of information and intelligence and involvement of residents, patients and service users. Reference was made to the current JSNA and it was advised that the document was out of date, not particularly strategy and it acted as a compendium of topics rather than a “strategic needs assessment”. The aim in drafting a new JSNA would be to move to mission based approach, which would be goal orientated.

In terms of timescales it was advised that it was intended that the final JSNA would be submitted to the Health and Well Being Board in March 2023. Key areas of action would then be developed under each Goal, with a view to the Health and Well-Being Strategy being collated and approved by the Health and Well-Being Board in June 2023.

Following the presentation Members were afforded the opportunity to ask questions and the following points were raised:-

Reference was made to a decision taken by Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA) to contract the cycle centre to Sustrans and away from Environment City and whether this had been the most effective solution. In response it was advised that although there had been a number of discussions held with TVCA in respect of the shared prosperity fund this was an area of work that required further development. The development of a new HWB Strategy provided a real opportunity to develop that relationship with the TVCA.   

A Member of the panel stated that the funding available through the shared prosperity fund was significantly less than that which had been available through the European Development Fund. It was therefore queried as to how it was envisaged that this relationship would work in practice to ensure health remained connected to it as possible. In response it was advised that the projects being undertaken by TVCA needed to be used as a lever to help in reducing health inequalities. However, further work was first required in respect of how the HWB Strategy was developed. 

The Director of Commissioning, Strategy and Delivery at the North East and North Cumbria (NENC) Integrated Care System (ICS) was in attendance to update the panel in respect of the NENC ICS and NENC Integrated Care Board (ICB), new statutory NHS organisations, launched on 1 July 2022. It was advised the new ICB now had collective responsibility for deploying the resources that had previously been discharged by the CCGs. The NENC ICB covered eight previous CCGs and was coterminous with 13 Local Authorities and a transition programme had been underway. Teams across the region NENC region had worked collectively to determine how the ICB would function and the Executive Team was now in place. Clear place based arrangements had also been established and a Director of Place for Middlesbrough and Redcar and Cleveland had been appointed. The ICB had set out some early ambitions around supporting staff that worked in the NENC. There was also a focus on embracing the innovation that had taken place during Covid-19 and promoting the region as the best place in the country to train and work.

In terms of the ICB it was constituted from the leadership team and there were four seats around that table for Local Authority representatives. One was held by the Director of Adult Social Care at Stockton Borough Council and the others were yet to be determined. Each ICS and ICB had to work with Integrated Care Partnerships (ICP’s) and owing to the NENC’s large geographical footprint the region had been split into four ICP’s, one of which was the Tees Valley ICP. 

The Chair thanked the Director of Public Health (South Tees) and the Director of Commissioning, Strategy and Delivery at the North East and North Cumbria (NENC) Integrated Care System for their presentations and contributions to the meeting.

AGREED that the information provided be noted.