Agenda item

Report and Presentation of the Corporate Director of Adult and Health Services and the Director of Public Health, Durham County Council.

The Board received a report of the Corporate Director of Adult and Health Services, Durham County Council that provided an update on the developments of County Durham Together.  The report was also to enlist the support of the members of the Health and Wellbeing Board to work towards the County Durham Together ambitions in the work they do collectively and as individual partners (for copy see file of minutes).

K Wilkinson, Public Health Strategic Manager (County Durham Together) gave a presentation on the developments of the County Durham Together (CDT) programme.  She stated that the programme had been reviewed and refreshed with a new vision to work with communities and the voluntary sector with a less bureaucratic way of working.  The vision mirrored what the Health and Wellbeing Board wanted to achieve.  She explained that the County Durham Together sat under the umbrella of the County Durham Partnership and aimed to create a streamlined, resilient, sustainable skilled workforce.  She noted that there were various workstreams to develop and carry the work forward.  There had been a lot of integrated working already developed to transform services that included mental health teams, neighbourhood teams and family hubs.  Further work was required and would need to enlist the support of all organisations to embed the work.  The CDT would provide the tools and the conditions to support the Joint Local Health and Wellbeing Strategy.

J Robinson mentioned that she chaired the CDT Partnership and throughout had tried to obtain a consistency of members and partners.  She felt that now the Public Health Strategic Manager (CDT) was in post to not only refresh and update the work it would provide the opportunity on how to drive the work forward.

Councillor Henderson asked if there was an alignment between the CDT, Integrated Neighbourhood Teams and Local Networks as they developed (former AAPs).

K Wilkinson responded that work was underway with all Neighbourhood Teams to gain synergy but alliances were tricky.   She looked forward to bringing everything together with an aim of eighteen months to get everything right for the networks.

G Elliott, Head of Partnerships and Community Engagement noted that this would be a better use of data with a local network profile that had a four year strategic plan for the Local Network Area. This would also join up resources and pots of money.

Councillor Henderson questioned how the impact on the community would be monitored.

K Wilkinson stated that there was instrumental work underway with academic institutions on a small scale to monitor the impact.  Work was still progressing but it was felt that the process on how to do things differently and how people felt was key in the first instance.  The baseline was community involvement and establishing how people felt now.

Councillor Henderson queried what the time frame would be.

K Wilkinson replied that results would not happen overnight but there were time frames in place that looked at the short time between 6-12 months and long term between 12-24 months.  She answered M Laing that she could report back to the Board at any point.

A Healy supported the recommendation as the work would lead to better outcomes.  She enquired as to whether the presentation could be replicated to other partnership groups to start to embed the ethos.

J Bradbrook reported that the presentation had already been to the County Durham partnership.

A Healy thought the message could be conveyed to individual partnerships.

M Laing considered as responsible bodies how the Board could enable CDT.  He felt it could be presented to more individual organisations as further engagement was required.  He noted that it had been to the Fire and Rescue service. 

A Healy believed that the ethos of CDT was required to be at the forefront of everyone’s mind and Board members should establish how to link with their organisations and provide support.

F Jassat understood that community engagement and involvement could take this forward that required a facultative approach that was evidence based on how to measure it with better studies and tools described in the framework.

G Elliott suggested that the CDT should feature at the annual event on 17 November 2023 at the Ramside Hotel, Durham.

K Burrows confirmed that the presentation had also been received at the Better Together Forum.

Resolved:

i)               That the contents of the report be noted.

ii)          That the Board supported and championed the developments for County Durham Together and recognised how the approach could support the Health and Wellbeing Board to attain its priorities.

That the Board agreed to the further development of the County Durham Approach to Wellbeing as an assurance tool for the Health and Wellbeing Board and its composite organisations to use in day-to-day work