The Health and Wellbeing Board is recommended to NOTE the Marmot Place Update.
Minutes:
Kate Holburn (Deputy Director of Public Health, Oxfordshire County Council), presented the Marmot Update.
Kate Holburn reminded the Board that Oxfordshire had
formally adopted the Marmot Place approach as a framework for tackling the
wider determinants of health, with a particular focus on reducing entrenched
inequalities across the county. She emphasised that this approach required a
whole-system response, extending beyond health and social care services to
include housing, transport, employment, and community development.
It was explained that a key strand of the work had been direct engagement with communities, particularly in areas experiencing higher levels of deprivation or disadvantage. This had included engagement with over 700 residents across a range of urban and rural communities. This engagement had provided valuable insight into lived experience, highlighting issues such as access to services, cost of living pressures, transport barriers, housing quality, and social isolation.
One of the most important findings was the clear variation in experience across different parts of the county, with rural communities often facing distinct challenges compared to urban areas. While deprivation in Oxfordshire was often described as relatively low compared to national averages, this masked significant pockets of inequality, which required targeted and locally informed responses.
Work was also ongoing to align Marmot principles with the Health and Wellbeing Strategy, the Better Care Fund, and emerging neighbourhood models of care. This included efforts to ensure that all major programmes considered their impact on health inequalities and incorporated a stronger focus on prevention.
Chris Wright (Associate Director for Oxfordshire Place,
Thames Valley ICB) asked how Marmot principles were being translated into
operational delivery within NHS services. Kate Holburn responded by explaining
that this remained a key area of focus, and that work was ongoing with NHS
partners to develop practical approaches to embedding Marmot principles. She
highlighted that Integrated Neighbourhood Teams were seen as a critical
mechanism for achieving this, by enabling a more proactive and preventative model
of care that was closely aligned with community needs.
The Executive Director of Healthwatch Oxfordshire queried how community voice and lived experience were being incorporated into the Marmot programme. She emphasised that engagement should not be limited to one-off exercises and that there was a need to ensure ongoing involvement of communities in shaping services and priorities.
Kate Holburn responded that strengthening community
engagement was a central objective of the Marmot work. She explained that the
intention was to move towards more sustained and meaningful participation,
including building relationships with community organisations and supporting
community-led research.
Cllr Sean Gaul reflected on the connection between the Marmot work and the Start Well programme. He noted that many of the inequalities identified through the Marmot analysis were evident from early childhood and emphasised the importance of early intervention in reducing long-term disparities. He expressed support for the alignment between these programmes and stressed the need to maintain a strong focus on children and young people within the Marmot framework.
In concluding the discussion, the Chair reflected on the importance of the Marmot approach as a unifying framework for addressing health inequalities across the system. He noted that the update demonstrated both the complexity of the challenges faced and the progress that had been made in building a shared understanding of those challenges.
The Board RESOLVED to:
1.
NOTE the Marmot Place Update.