There were no declarations of interest and apologies.

It was noted that Cllr Rebecca Knox(Con) and Cllr Anthony Rowlands (Lib) were attending as observers.

The Rt Hon Matt Hancock MP, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, will be attending to speak to the Community Wellbeing Board.

The Chairman introduced the Rt Hon Matt Hancock MP, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, to the meeting of the Community Wellbeing Board.

The Secretary of State spoke to the Board, in particular highlighting the following;

·         He gave an example of a time he had met with a parent of a young person with severe autism who has been in a secure hospital for two years.  He emphasised the parent had been particularly distressed over being unable to visit and hug their child for over two months. He stated that this young person could receive a better level of care from local authorities.

·         Regarding the integration of public health he emphasised the need for more porous boundaries between services.

·         He reassured Members the Adult Social Care Green Paper was now intended at an April publication.

·         He highlighted that the Adult Social Care Green Paper would include a section on digital and informatics interoperability between health and care with reference to the positive examples such as in Leeds. He also indicated there would be sections on the integrated models of care as well as on support for carers.

·         Regarding integration he emphasised we need to move to learning from the best models.

 In the discussion that followed, the following points were raised;

·         In regards to a query as to how the Secretary of State would achieve cross-party support for funding adult social care, he responded by emphasising that a lot of work had been to gain a consensus. He raised that there will be an increase in the budget funded through taxes. He also raised that there had been injustices in the way that adult social care is funded both between different areas and in the unequal provision for different conditions.

·         A query was raised regarding the Secretary of States thoughts on whether the government regrets cuts to public health, why public health is having an £85 million budget cut despite performance improving and how work on the social determinants of health could make significant savings for the NHS. The Secretary of State responded by emphasising the budget changes are the result of the 2015 review. He asked that the LGA provide evidence to help inform the summer review to include in future debate on the public health budget.

·         In regards to a query as to how the Secretary of State can ensure local government get their fair share of funding towards digital innovations, he raised that the technology vision would focus on delivering better services and value for money through better use of data.  In particular he emphasised the importance of digital innovations supporting interoperability between adult social care and health.

·         In regards to a question regarding local government contribution in the implementation of the NHS Long Term Plan the Secretary of State the importance of correct governance. He voiced that although Health and Wellbeing Boards were working brilliantly in some areas it was not the case everywhere. He did emphasise that the NHS Long Term Plan  ...  view the full minutes text for item 2.

Andy Bell, Deputy Chief Executive for the Centre of Mental Health, will attend to discuss the Independent Review of the Mental Health Act 1983 with the Community Wellbeing Board.

The Chairman welcomed Andy Bell, Deputy Chief Executive of the Centre for Mental Health, and Mark Trewin, Mental Health Adult Social Work Lead and the Department of Health and Social Care, to the meeting of the Community Wellbeing Board. Mark Trewin and Andy Bell introduced the item opening a discussion with Community Wellbeing Board Members on the publication of ‘Modernising the Mental Health act. Increasing choice, reducing compulsion’ - the final report of the Independent Review of the Mental Health Act 1983.

Mark explained the context of the review, explaining it was commissioned by the Prime Minister in 2017 to explore how the legislation in the Mental Health Act 1983 is used and how practice can be improved. He explained the review sought to understand why there had been rising rates of detention, where processes have become outdated and the reasons for the disproportionate number of people from black and minority ethnic groups were being detained under the act. Mark emphasised that local authorities had played an important role in providing evidence to inform the review. Andy explained to members that the review had identified areas of concern and proposed recommendations to amend the Mental Health Act. He highlighted four key areas, in particular a strong proposal for advocacy to be extended and boosted.

Mark also emphasised that they had held discussions with the authors of the NHS Long Term Plan and Adult Social Care Green Paper to ensure they were clear of the key messages from the review. He also emphasised that they had worked closely with ADASS throughout. He also drew Members attention to developments on mental health for local authorities, emphasising that none of these will work without social care. In particular he raising the importance of new forms of integration and the prevention green paper.

In the discussion that followed, the following points were made;

·         Views were expressed that the reviews work was extremely valuable.

·         Concerns were raised as to the lack of available supported housing. In response Mark emphasised the importance of support housing would be reflected in the adult social care green paper.

·         Concerns were raised around the mental health of those going through the criminal justice system. In response Mark emphasised that a group led by Matthew Scott, Police and Crime Commissioner for Kent, were focusing on better bringing together these services on this topic.

·         Andy raised that there continued to be a growing evidence base for the critical role of prevention in mental health.

·         The importance of children’s centres and working to build up a child’s resilience in their first two years of life was raised.

·         Mark reassured Members the views of other communities on the stigmatisation of mental health had been taken into account in the review.

·         Andy informed Members that they had found apprenticeships had been effective in bringing people into the workforce and in responding to where groups are underrepresented in an areas mental health workforce.

Decisions

The Community Wellbeing Board:

1. Noted the update on the final  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

Alyson Morley, Senior Adviser, introduced the item including a report summarising the main proposals of the Long Term Plan (LTP) and the LGA key messages. She  reported that the briefing  which was circulated to Members of the Community Wellbeing Board (CWB) had been published and promoted in the Chief Executive’s newsletter and the Health and Wellbeing System and  CWB bulletins.

In the discussion that followed, the following points were raised;

·         Views were expressed that Health and Wellbeing Boards provide the necessary leadership for supporting commissioning.

·         Concerns were raised that areas with high levels of deprivation will not receive a sufficient proportion of the resources.

·         Concerns were raised that the targets to increase NHS social prescribing services in the LTP  need to build rather than duplicate or replace social prescribing services also funded by local government. Consideration is also needed to ensure that the voluntary and community sector has sufficient capacity to respond to increases in social prescribing.

·         Concerns were raised that there was increase in diagnosing autism but autism services were not being increased in line with demand.

·         A view was expressed that work force issues in social care will need to continue to be emphasised in LGA key messages.

·         the LGA would continue to challenge misinterpretation data and findings by NHS England .

·         Paul Ogden, Senior Adviser, reported that the NHS Long Term Plan proposed a review of the commissioning of sexual health services, school nursing and health visiting with a view to giving NHS England a greater role. In effect, this may result in the transfer of commissioning of these services back to the NHS, with  £1.5 billion being transferred from the  public health budget to the NHS. This would be approximately half of the current public health budget.

·         A concern was raised that Health and Wellbeing Boards are mentioned only once in  the NHS Long Term Plan.

·         Alyson asked members of the Board to send examples from their local areas of the value and impact of Health and Wellbeing Boards to inform a future piece of work the LGA would be undertaking.

Decision

The Community Wellbeing Board noted the update.

Abigail Gallop, Senior Adviser, introduced the report updating members on the Children and Young People’s Mental Health work programme and set out possible future themes of work in this area. In particular Abigail emphasised the proposal for more joint working between the Community Wellbeing Board and Children and Young People Board on children’s mental health.

Cllr Richard Kemp CBE, Deputy Chair of the Community Wellbeing Board, congratulated Abigail on a successful event on 29 January on ‘Improving transition from children to adult mental health services’. He informed Members that the event had been very encouraging. He emphasised the importance of transition from children’s to adult services and the huge role of Local Government had been very clear throughout discussion on the day.

In the discussion that followed, the following points were made;

·         Concerns were raised as to the severity of the statistics regarding self-harm in children that were included in the report, and the possible links to social media.

·         The importance of engaging with young people as to their view on these services was emphasised.

·         A view was expressed that it would be valuable for the LGA to share their own findings from the aforementioned event and to give guidelines on transition from children’s to adult services for Councils.

·         Regarding the data on the spend of the additional £1.7billion for CAMHS detailed in the report, Abigail emphasised that this is the first year NHSE can be confident of its accuracy.

·         Cllr Rachel Eden explained that in her local authority, Reading Borough Council, involving a youth council was proving effective in reviewing these services and supporting young people.

·         Cllr Doreen Huddart explained that her local authority were taking part in the children’s mental health ‘trailblazers’, and that local scrutiny work had turned around a decision on the location of eating disorder support. They’re also looking at the development of a mobile phone app.

Decision

The Community Wellbeing Board noted and commented on the activities to date.

Action

Officers will present a report detailing a proposed Children’s Mental Health Joint Working Group and its work plan to the following meetings of the Community Wellbeing Board and the Children and Young People Board.

The Chairman, introduced the Update on Other Board Business report. The following additional updates were provided by members of the Board;

·         Cllr Jackie Meldrum informed members that the Autism Task Force was looking for more Councillors to contribute ideas and suggestions to this work.

·         Cllr Doreen Huddart explained that she had attended two events for Forces in Mind Trust. The first being consultation to discuss the key issues surrounding the delivery of the Armed Forces Covenant and the second a parliamentary reception launching the report ‘Benefit not burden: How to improve the delivery of organizational pledges made under the Armed Forces Covenant’. Cllr Huddart explained that these had been valuable and requested that information from these events be circulated to members of the Community Wellbeing Board.

·         Cllr Jackie Meldrum informed members that in her local area AccessAble had proven a valuable service to carry out and publish on line detailed disability audits of venues with objective of enabling disabled people to plan trips out in advance.  Further to this she expressed a view that it would be valuable for the LGA to get in touch with AccessAble regarding their work.

Actions

Officers to liaise with AccessAble to further discuss their work with Councils.

Alexander Saul, Assistant Member Services Manager, to circulate further information from the Forces in Mind Trust events attended Cllr Huddart to members of the Community Wellbeing Board.

The minutes of the last meeting were agreed with the inclusion of an action confirming that officers would approach the London Building Society on their work around equity release that could be of interest to the Board, and potentially could present to the Board in future.