Agenda item

Report by Director of Public Health and Communities

This paper presents three elements of the Community Insight Profiles programme of work, which includes:

(a)           Two further Community Insight Profiles within Phase four of the programme: Wood Farm (Oxford City) and a bespoke area of Witney (West Oxfordshire) referred to as Witney Central Community Insight Profile area. The report highlights the links to the Marmot Places programme.

(b)           A report on the first phase of evaluation of the Oxfordshire County Council funded Community Health Development Officer programme and the NHS ICB funded Well Together programme.

(c)           Enablers to address inequalities as a legacy of the Community Insight Profiles, including the first iteration of an interactive Community Insight Profile Dashboard to increase accessibility to the data and insight and a draft toolkit to support the development of partner led Community Insight Profiles in other areas.

Since 2021, Public Health have been working with partners to carry out a programme of work to develop Community Insight Profiles (CIP). The work was initiated after the publication of the Director of Public Health (DPH) Annual Report  for 2019/20 which highlighted ten wards in Oxfordshire which have small areas (Lower Super Output Areas) that were listed in the 20% most deprived in England in the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) update (published November 2019) and are most likely to experience inequalities in health. The publication of Community Insight Profiles for all ten areas was completed in December 2023.

Following on from this, a further four Community Insight Profiles are being developed for areas across the county identified as falling within the 30-40% most deprived nationally according to the IMD (2019) and where local partners identified that there would be added benefit to developing a profile. Wood Farm and a bespoke area of Witney are included in these areas. A CIP for Berinsfield was published in September 2024 and a further CIP for Bicester West is in development and will be published in June 2025, which will bring the Public Health led programme of this work to a close.

The Health and Wellbeing Board is RECOMMENDED to:

a)    Use the findings and rich insight contained within the Community Insight Profiles for Wood Farm and Witney Community Insight Area (CIA) and their relevance to the Marmot Place programme of work to inform service delivery plans of partner organisations on the Board and support the promotion and sharing of the findings with partners and colleagues across the system.

b)    Support the promotion of the interactive Community Insight Profile (CIP) Dashboard and the Community Insight Profile (CIP) development toolkit that will serve as a legacy of the CIP programme of work.

c)    Support the promotion and sharing of the findings from the first phase of an evaluation of the Community Health Development Officer (CHDO) and Well Together programmes with partners and colleagues across the system.

David Munday, Tom McCulloch, Katherine Howell and Erica Charters presented the report.

Relating to the Witney Central Community Insight Report, Tom McCulloch reported that funding was an issue to continue these projects and gave a detailed insight into the number of residents spoke to, case studies and focus groups.

It was noted that community-based services are vital in Witney, and that more support was needed for parents & health visitors. Children & young people in particular did not feel involved in local decision-making.

Katherine Howell spoke to the Healthwatch Oxfordshire report into Wood Farm, Oxford. Community events were held and door-knocking in Wood Farm helped to receive opinions from local residents, as well as an art competition at the local primary school.

Strengths of Wood Farm were identified as having green spaces, play parks, nearby shops; but experiences of this were unequal. One issue that arose was the lack of availability to healthy, affordable food to those who didn’t have transport or were not able to be physically active. Some people who worked were found to be struggling in the cost-of-living crisis.

Dr Erica Charters (Oxford University) evaluated the approaches of the preventative work undertaken in the Well Together programme, which had been ongoing since the inception of the project. Time was spent in the community to understand their regular days, patterns and commonly visited places through Community Health Development Officers (CHDO’s).

It was found that both programmes were effective; in terms of the grants being dispersed and through engagement with local communities. There were 196 health and wellbeing activities organised across the 10 most deprived wards.

One of the key concerns was the lack of consistent/secure funding, with new groups wanting to have new initiatives whilst the key for community groups was to focus on the sustainability of projects, rather than their novelty.

Key recommendations outlined by the University-led evaluation were:

-       ‘Rooted research’ instead of ‘parachute projects’.

-       Prioritising sustainability and reliability over novelty.

-       Interpersonal strengths of CHDO’s and CCBs (social relationships) to encourage expectations of improved health and wellbeing, breaking down community indifference and distrust

-       Supporting community trust and engagement with existing community resources.

Cllr John Howson noted this work was based in urban areas and stressed the importance of having a primary school in rural areas.

Cllr Louise Upton picked up on the ‘parachute projects’ being detrimental and Dr Charters noted the cynicism that was picked up around such projects in the communities, emphasising the need for stability.

Cllr Rob Pattenden noted the ongoing projects in Bicester and commented that it has to be long-term to see long-term benefits.

David Munday demonstrated the Community Insight Profile dashboard and toolkit with some short videos to the Board.

Cllr Nathan Ley asked about the Council’s plans to ensure that these toolkits and dashboards would be kept updated. David Munday confirmed there was a data warehouse that would be continually updated.

RESOLVED to:

a)    Use the findings and rich insight contained within the Community Insight Profiles for Wood Farm and Witney Community Insight Area (CIA) and their relevance to the Marmot Place programme of work to inform service delivery plans of partner organisations on the Board and support the promotion and sharing of the findings with partners and colleagues across the system.

b)    Support the promotion of the interactive Community Insight Profile (CIP) Dashboard and the Community Insight Profile (CIP) development toolkit that will serve as a legacy of the CIP programme of work.

c)    Support the promotion and sharing of the findings from the first phase of an evaluation of the Community Health Development Officer (CHDO) and Well Together programmes with partners and colleagues across the system.