Agenda item

14:00

A request was made on 16 November 2017 that progress be reported to this Committee every 6 months to ensure Health Inequalities remains a priority. A report is attached which will review progress of the Health & Wellbeing Board with the Health Improvement Commission’s recommendations (JHO12).

In response to a request made by this Committee for progress on the review from the Oxfordshire Health Inequalities Commission to be reported every 6 months to ensure that health inequalities remained a priority, an update report was attached at JHO12. Dr Kiren Collison, Clinical Chair of the OCCG and Vice – Chair of the Health & Wellbeing Board, and a member of the Implementation Group which she also chaired, joined Dr McWilliam and Jackie Wilderspin, Public Health, OCC at the table.

Dr McWilliam introduced the item giving a brief overview of the process, reminding the Committee that the recommendations had no force of statute and some were very broad about society as a whole. Jackie Wilderspin spoke to the report highlighting the following key issues:

-       A multi-agency group met quarterly which included membership from the district councils, OCC, OCCG and other bodies to consider how and who would take forward the recommendations of the Commission;

-       Six priority areas had been highlighted and there was now a basket of indicators on ‘Oxfordshire Insight’’

-       Little progress had been made on the setting up of the Innovation Fund as groups did not wish to duplicate what was already in existence;

-       A workshop had been held to look at the reasons why benefits were not taken up, the outcomes of which would be taken to the Implementation Group to take forward;

-       Good work had taken place on social prescribing which was OCCG led;

-       Physical activity issues had been targeted and OXBAR had agreed to take them forward;

-       A specific initiative on prevention issues had been taken on by the Oxford City Locality Group, working with Mental Health; and

-       The Implementation Group was due to meet in July and wold be focusing on the list of recommendations, where progress had not yet been made.

Dr Collison commented that Health Inequalities should form a part of every workstream within Health and Social Care stating that there was a significant amount of work to do in relation to recognising its importance.  She undertook to provide further information to members of the Committee in relation to recommendation 48 relating to the gathering of information on race.

When asked about how Health Inequalities for people suffering from mental health illness was being addressed, Dr McWilliam responded that this was included across the board, along with those for people with a learning disability (recommendation 39).

A member asked why the Commission did not address recommendations that related to the link between housing and health inequality, for example, to work more closely with housing associations in order to improve inequalities. Jackie Wilderspin stated that the report was a product of the evidence the Commission had taken from local data sources and responses received – and the links with housing had not been included in the report. Dr McWilliam added that Health had been a missing piece in local planning. However, its role was now much to the fore and was about to enter the workstream as a topic.

A member asked if there was anything that needed to be done to encourage people to provide the Implementation Group with the required information on factors which did not fit in with the familiar, such as transport. Jackie Wilderspin responded that the work was now progressing to the last few recommendations where there was a need to think about what to do if the knowledge was not there.

The Committee AGREED to:

(a)  scrutinise the process again once the work on the priority areas had been completed with a view to using the Committee’s influence to assist in the successful implementation of the recommendations; and

(b)  in relation to recommendation 16, to suggest to the Commission that an additional clause be added in retrospect, that existing providers of social housing be brought into the Commission’s orbit.