Agenda item

To receive a presentation from Sarah Scott, Director of Public Health, on the public health annual report.

23.1           The Chair introduced Sarah Scott, Director of Public Health for Gloucestershire County Council, and indicated that she would be giving a presentation on the annual public health report.

23.2           The Director of Public Health for Gloucestershire County Council indicated that she had been in post for 18 months and had worked as a consultant prior to that.  Whilst the requirement was to produce an annual public health report, this had fallen behind and the report she would be presenting was a two year report covering the period 2014/15 – 2015/16.  The 2016/17 report was currently being produced and she would be happy to bring this to the Committee when it was ready in the autumn.  She explained that a slightly different approach had been taken to producing this report in terms of the way that the relevant information was presented to the public and stakeholders, for example, short films had been used in order to try to describe the impact of interventions which had been funded through public health. 

23.3           The report contained a snapshot of health and wellbeing in the county using information from the Inform Gloucestershire website which combined the information held on the Multi-Agency Information Database for Neighbourhoods (MAIDeN), and Inform to provide district profiles.  Gloucestershire was predominantly healthy and wealthy with a good quality of life and above average life expectancy.  It did have an ageing population, with people tending to leave the county in their early twenties and return in their forties, and one of the key challenges was how the healthcare system could best be used to reflect the needs of that population.  It was 19 years since the teenage pregnancy reduction targets had been set and Gloucestershire was a national leader in this area.  Notwithstanding this, men living in the most deprived parts of the county could expect to live eight years less than men in the least deprived areas with the gap for women being six years; it felt particularly unjust that, in 2017, men and women were dying earlier just because of where they lived.

23.4           The public health ring-fenced grant for 2015/16 was £24,934,000; £4,178,000 had been spent on sexual health; £3,521,000 on healthy lifestyles e.g. stop smoking, weight management service on GP referral, breastfeeding peer support; £6,924,000 on commissioning the drug and alcohol treatment service; £507,000 on public mental health; £200,000 on domestic abuse; £5,225,000 on children aged 0-19 e.g. school nursing service, specific activities in children’s centres such as Health, Exercise and Nutrition for the Really Young (HENRY); £812,000 on NHS Health checks; and £3,549,000 on the public health function which paid for the Public Health Team, additional staff based in other teams, health protection contingency, and data storage and licences.  A compulsory spending review in 2015 had reduced the ring-fenced grant and there was a further £1.2M reduction to make. 

23.5           Attention was drawn to six case studies which showed how the public health grant had supported people in Gloucestershire.  Members were shown a video in relation to former Type 2 diabetes sufferer Terry who had been able to turn his life around following a 12 week referral to Slimming World.  Other examples included Play Gloucestershire which delivered local play projects such as the Play Rangers who took skills and equipment into the community to create safe places for outdoor play; the Recovery Hub Café which provided volunteering opportunities to help those recovering from addiction to gain confidence and experience in the workplace, as well as helping them to make friends and widen their support network, increasing their chances of long-term recovery; Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) which helped people to have a constructive conversation with someone who may be thinking about suicide; Fair Shares, a community project that used two way volunteering called time banking to bring people closer together to support and help one another; and Know Yer Balls, an initiative developed in partnership with Cheltenham Town Football Club which was a gender sensitive approach to health work with young men through football delivered at schools across the county.  In terms of the current year, priorities included maximising the potential of the local Sustainability and Transformation Plan which had a strong prevention element; influencing other organisations to take on public health; and taking part in the pilot for tackling obesity for which Gloucestershire had been chosen as one of four local authorities.

23.6           A Member questioned how the £1.2M savings would be made.  The Director of Public Health for Gloucestershire County Council advised that work had been ongoing since November 2015 to understand how that would be achieved.  In terms of the drugs and alcohol service, Change Grow Live (CGL) had been commissioned as the new provider in January 2017.  Remodelling also helped with efficiencies, for example, aspects of healthy lifestyles had been remodelled and rolled into one service.  Inevitably, some initiatives had been stopped and staff had been lost.  The focus needed to be on the areas where funding could have the greatest impact.  A Member understood that Officers had been finding it difficult to make contact with CGL and he raised concern that this might extend to those who needed to make use of the service.  The Director of Public Health for Gloucestershire County Council advised that CGL had a website and telephone number; the Public Health Team had been out to all localities, as had CGL and she could only apologise if there had not been any contact with Tewkesbury Borough Council.  She indicated that she would be more than happy to speak to the relevant Officer following the meeting.  She went on to provide assurance that, whilst CGL was a new provider, it offered the same service as the previous provider, Turning Point, the only difference being that there was no longer a hub in Tewkesbury; there had been low attendance at the hub and consultation with the community had shown that people with drug and alcohol issues would prefer to meet in a place of their choosing.  There were still hubs in Cheltenham, Gloucester and Stroud for anyone who did want to use them.

23.7           The Chair thanked the Director of Public Health for Gloucestershire County Council for her informative presentation and expressed the view that the videos of the case studies were a very good way to communicate key messages to the public.  It was

RESOLVED          1.   That the presentation on the Public Health Report 2014/15 – 2015/16 be NOTED.

2.  That the Public Health Report 2016/17 be brought to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee in October/November.