Agenda item

Report of the Corporate Director of Adult and Health Services – Public Health Portfolio Lead, Adult and Health Services.

The Chairman introduced the Public Health Portfolio Lead, Tim Wright and the Senior Public Health Specialist, Graeme Greig who were in attendance to speak to Members in relation to Housing and Health - Collaborative Working (for copy see file of minutes).

The Public Health Portfolio Lead explained that the links between housing and health had been established for decades and the work of Public Health was precipitated by the peer review carried out by the Local Government Association (LGA) at the invitation of the Health and Wellbeing Board (HWB) around a year ago.  One of the recommendations of the review was the Board to have more effective engagement with the housing sector.  As a result the Board’s Officer Development Group supported the need for the establishment of a Health and Housing Task Group. This is chaired byPaul Fiddaman, Group Chief Executive of ISOS Housing and Graeme Greig from Public Health.  It was noted there was good representation on this group from the NHS, Clinical Commissioning Groups, Housing Providers; and DCC services, including Housing.

Councillors noted that from the initial meeting of the group there had been agreement to focus on 2 areas, a survey to determine what community based health projects Registered Providers were engaged in, and the piloting of a brief intervention training package, Making Every Contact Count (MECC).  It was noted that colleagues from Spatial Planning had helped in terms of the survey work and that the training in terms of MECC was in recognition of the fact that any public facing staff in any organisation often had multiple contacts with the public.  Members noted that MECC training involved what brief interventions were, the evidence for their use, raising an issue and using the 3 ‘A’ approach (ask, advise and assist).  To date 10 training sessions were held between September and December 2016, with 126 participants from 4 organisations.  It was explained that there would be evaluation of the pilot and WFL had agreed to use two measures to assess individuals when they are first referred then at 2, 6 and 12 months. 

The Public Health Portfolio Lead added that the next steps would include working with the Providers to determine any blocks on why Tenants were not being referred and how these could be overcome.  The Registered Providers were keen to know whether, by being involved in this type of intervention, it could impact on their Tenants’ life quality and more particularly whether any link with sustainable tenancies can be made.

The Committee also noted that there had been other Housing and Public Health projects that included: a workshop jointly facilitated by Public Health England and ISOS on the “Impact of Housing on Health”; “Routes out of Poverty” a series of training events for NHS, Children Services, Adult Services and Housing where each service outlined their role; the Home Environment Assessment Tool (HEAT), a tool used when Housing Solutions staff visit a home where there was a family with children under 18 years of age; and a primary care project to utilise DCC’s fuel poverty programmes to target those patients with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to see if the uptake of the interventions impacted upon individual health and wellbeing and healthcare costs.

The Public Health Portfolio Lead concluded by noting that when looking at the practical interventions one needed to be mindful of the strategic picture in terms of reductions in budgets and these challenges were being looked at by the Head of Housing and the Director of Public Health.

The Chairman thanked the Public Health Portfolio Lead and asked Members for any questions. 

Councillor J Armstrong noted it was encouraging to see joined up working and links with the many Registered Housing Providers in the County.

Resolved:   

That the report be noted.