Agenda item

Organisations across the Health and Wellbeing Board have developed a new Oxfordshire Health and Wellbeing Strategy for 2024-2030 (Annex 2), which has been informed throughout by the Integrated Care System (ICS) Strategy and the Oxfordshire Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA). The strategy content has been developed through a process of early engagement with people and communities across Oxfordshire, a workshop with the Health and Wellbeing (HWB) Board, full public consultation and several HWB Board discussions. A cross-organisational Task and Finish group has led the work on behalf of the HWB Board throughout the process.

The Health and Wellbeing Board is RECOMMENDED to

·       Note the content of the public consultation report (Annex 1) which contains the consultation methodology, summary of feedback received and how it has informed the strategy.

·       Approve the content of the full final strategy (Annex 2) as the final version of the Board’s Health and Wellbeing Strategy for 2024-2030.

·       Support plans to publicise the Strategy in January 2024 when it is fully launched.

·       Note that Officers plan to bring to the Board meeting in March 2024 a delivery plan and outcomes framework to support strategy implementation.

David Munday, Deputy Director of Public Health, OCC, thanked all Members of the Health and Wellbeing Board (HWB) for there attendance at the workshop and the really helpful engagement and time to steer the task and finish group. The engagement for the Strategy had been really positive.

The Board were reminded that the new Health and Wellbeing Strategy had been structured around four areas. The principles of prevention, tackling inequalities and working in closer collaboration. Secondly, there are priorities across the life course, thirdly, there were the fundamental building blocks of health that everyone needed to have in place to lead healthy and happy lives and finally, the three enablers listed that helped to move from the Strategy to delivery. The Strategy had been heavily influenced by the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA), this was the assessment of residents needs in Oxfordshire and also the early engagement and public consultation in this strategy work. This then connected into the Integrated Care System Strategy and the NHS 5-year forward plan and Primary Care Strategy. This was the Primary Place Strategy for Oxfordshire. The two main reflections had been a real desire and willingness to joined up working to have a new Strategy and good collaboration to improve health and wellbeing locally and a real appetite to move this from a Strategy to delivery and making a difference. The Board was introduced to Imogen Coningsby, Health Improvement Practitioner and Tamanna Rahimi, Paediatric Public Health Fellow.

Imogen Coningsby reported on the consultation. From mid-October to mid-November, the draft Health and Wellbeing Strategy went out for consultation, parts of the consultation had been informed by the engagement work carried out by Healthwatch and Public Health with over 1000 residents over summer. The aim of the public consultation was to gather further insights from residents and stakeholders on the final draft version of the Strategy to ensure that the voices of the residents and stakeholders were incorporated into the Strategy. The consultation had been conducted through an online survey that had been conducted through an online survey that had been developed and agreed by the Health and Wellbeing Strategy Task and Finish Group. An easy read survey was also carried out with the sector organisations and community groups. A variety of different channels were used to engage respondents including key networks and partnerships, social media, staff communications, E newsletters, councillors, parish councils and other council teams such as housing social care and children’s services. In order to capture people that could not access the online survey, Healthwatch hosted a webinar that 68 people attended. The online survey received 435 responses, many of which were from organisations that represented many people. There was high support for the priorities and the enablers in the draft, the three principles in the draft received high support at 93%, overall people thought the Strategy was well written, well structured and easy to read.

Tamanna Rahimi added that there were some cross-cutting themes included how the Strategy would be delivered including what kind of workforce would be required to deliver the ambitions, concern around access to health services and respondents felt that by improving access to healthcare was vital to improving health and wellbeing. Mental Health had been through integrating the concerns in every life course section of the Strategy highlighting the building blocks of health on mental health. Residents felts that parental wellbeing, bettering home environment, family relationships and their importance had not been addressed before school readiness and mental resilience in children and young people. This had been reflected in the ambitions.

David Munday informed the Board that the next steps after the meeting were to create a final, attractive version that would be published in January 2024 with extensive comms and promotion, including some easy read versions. Then this would move into the delivery and action plan which would be presented to the Board at the March 2024 meeting along with the outcomes framework.

The Chair thanked the Officers and the Board Members for all the hard work that had gone into producing the Strategy.

The Board highlighted the following points:

·       It was interesting to see the support in the education phase in a child’s life and recognise change going forward.

·       It was good to be involved and to see the immediate actions in the report. It had been noted that many responses had commented on the difficulties in getting GP and dentist appointments and this had been a barrier for residents.

·       It was a good Strategy, but it was important to see how it was important to see how it would be delivered in such difficult financial times, asking if the activity was necessary.

·       It was asked if the Strategy and Delivery Plan would be better launched together in March 2024.

·       It was a good to have a single Place-based approach and direction that everybody had been involved in with so much positive collaborations.

·       The Board were reminded of the agreed principles of tackling inequalities, prevention of ill health and working in collaboration.

·       The point was raised that it was mainly women who had responded to the survey and if this needed to be addressed. Approach was an important point and where the consultations were carried out.

·       There was a link to the Drug Combat Partnership, and this would be included in the delivery plan.

RESOLVED: that the Board noted the content of the public consultation report, approved the content of the full final Strategy as a final version of the Board’s Health and Wellbeing Strategy for 2024-2030, supported plans to publicise the Strategy in January 2024 when it was fully launched and noted that Officers would bring a delivery plan and outcomes framework to support Strategy implementation to the March 2024 meeting.