Agenda item

The Committee received a presentation from the Director of Public Health County Durham that gave an oversight on the Public Health responsibilities (for copy see file of Minutes).

The presentation highlighted the following:-

·        Responsibilities and other priority interventions

·        County Durham Joint Strategic Needs Assessment

·        Background to public health funding

·        Budget 2019/20

·        Our priorities – the Taylor family

·        Every child to have the best start in life

·        0-5 mandated contracts

·        Excellent drug and alcohol provision

·        Key priorities for the new contract

·        Numbers in treatment (April 2018 – September 2018) taken from NDTMS

·        Positive behaviour change

·        Sexual health

·        Sexual health services

·        NHS healthchecks

·        Reduction in smoking levels

·        Supporting Healthy Weight in County Durham

·        Active 30

·        Mental Health at Scale

·        Mental Health at Scale programme

·        Public health grant proposals beyond 2020 and implications for County Durham

·        The Taylor family – healthy life expectancy

·        North east position

·        Considerations and actions

Councillor Bell referred to the healthy life expectancy and the ACRA formula used with the potential for cuts and asked if the service had any contingency plans with a list of must dos.  He also asked how the service balance their commitments.  The Director of Public Health responded that behind the scenes the service have been looking at contingency plans for some time and how best to use the resources available, which had been built into the MTFP of the Council.  The service were looking at where improvements could be made and where any wholesale changes would have to be made.  For example, childhood obesity could be approached by looking at the environment in which the child lives rather than looking at one to one support however, a lot of work was being carried out on prioritisation.

Councillor Grant referred to recent communication from the Police, Crime and Victim’s Commissioner (PCVC) to address drugs and alcohol concerns and she asked what the Council were doing to support this.  The Director of Public health advised that the service work closely with the PCVC and they had agreed to carry out healthy needs assessments and what treatments were best for clients.  She would share this detail with the committee and advised that currently there were 2000 long term clients that had both physical and mental health needs.  Work had been commissioned to look at the mental health side and to look at recovery with a focus on dedicated women’s provision.  The Principal Overview and Scrutiny Officer advised members that scrutiny of the Drug and Alcohol service fell within the remit of the Safer and Stronger Communities OSC and that this area of work formed part of the work programme for that committee.  He would suggest that when the matter was considered by that Committee then members of the Adults, Wellbeing and Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee be invited to attend.

Councillor Smith asked if there was any other way in which members could help to lobby about the funding issue.  She had written to several newspapers about this and the Northern Echo had printed one of her letters.

Councillor Huntington was concerned that because of austerity and the high levels of poverty and deprivation in our county that this impacted on the kind of service we could be provided and was concerned about how we could meet that.

The Chair informed members that the committee would be looking at Adult Social Care as part of the work programme.

Resolved:

That the presentation be noted.