Report attached.

Contact:

Penny Bason, Head of Joint Partnerships, Shropshire Council/ICB

Claire Parker, Director of Strategy and Development, NHS Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin

The Director of Strategy and Development, NHS Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin and the Assistant Director for Integration and Healthy Population introduced this item which was based on the work undertaken by the Head of Joint Partnerships who was unable to attend.

The Assistant Director for Integration and Healthy Population drew attention to the key points and brought neighbourhood working to life in terms of some of the delivery.  She highlighted the four key priority areas included within the Prevention Framework (access, integration, person centred care and communities), and she drew attention to some of the approaches being taken to enable people to live their best lives and to stay happy, healthy and connected within their communities.  She went on to give examples of some of the work that had already taken place, including five integrated practitioner teams being up and running across the county, and the community and family hubs, information for which was now live on the Council’s website, and she encouraged all partners to promote that link through their networks.  Finally, she discussed the progress of the women’s health hubs and touched on how data would be captured to ensure that the desired outcomes were achieved and how this linked back to the JSNA. 

The Director of Strategy and Development informed the meeting that there were five broadly geographical neighbourhoods across Shropshire and similar across Telford & Wrekin and there had been a lot of collaborative work around how to develop the needs-based approach in each of those neighbourhoods.  She explained how the Highley health hub had come about when the GP had ended their contract which had provided a real opportunity to think about what could be delivered based on the Highley JSNA.  That project had been a test bed for the Women’s Health Hub which had been rolled out across all the neighbourhoods as well.  Work was currently underway with Community Trust colleagues about what the district nursing and allied health professional teams that deliver into those hubs would look like to deliver that wraparound care and that needs-based approach. 

Finally, the Director of Strategy and Development then touched on the NHS planning guidance and some of the core components of that which would feed into the work that was being undertaken going forward.

The Chief Officer for Healthwatch Shropshire offered to be a part of this work and to regularly attend the hubs to speak to people about their experiences of the benefits that the hubs were bringing, but also to better understand the barriers that people were facing when accessing them.  The Chair of the VSCA also welcomed the opportunity for the voluntary and community sector to take a more central role but questioned what that role was, and how they would be supported to do so.  She felt that a lot more collaborative work was needed around these issues, and she raised concerns about how the voluntary sector had been impacted by the creation of the hubs.  In response, the Director of Strategy and Development explained that some of those issues were being addressed and would be fed into the shared Framework document.  It was agreed to discuss the issues raised by the VCSA outside of the meeting.

The Portfolio Holder for Adult Social Care and Public Health felt that as Shropshire was a very large rural county, she was concerned that it was always the people who had to go to the hub, rather than the hub going to the people.  There appeared to be no recognition that there were facilities within rural areas, village halls for example, that could participate in this kind of activity.  Thought needed to be given as to how to reach those people who found it difficult to get to the hubs.  Further developments were needed so that some services could be delivered directly to those rural communities. 

The Chair proposed that the Board accept the recommendations but also to note the points made by Board members to further develop that work and to move it forward and recognise that that afternoon’s workshop would also build on that work.

RESOLVED:

·     To note the progress made with Neighbourhood Working in Shropshire and the significant amount of partnership working;

·     To recognise how HWBB priorities were being delivered through the Integrated approaches of Neighbourhood Working;

·     To endorse the continuation of this approach and recommend its continuation to Shropshire Integrated Place Partnership;

·     To recommend the inclusion of the work and approach in the Joint Forward Plan and to recommend for Local Authority and ICB Commissioners to review and support through Commissioning Intentions.