Issue - meetings

Terri Roche, Director of Public Health, to present

Consideration was given to the Director of Public Health’s Annual Report 2015/16 as submitted.

The Director of Public Health has a statutory responsibility to produce an Annual Report and the Council has a statutory duty to publish it.

This report focused on an analysis of some of the key issues affecting the health and wellbeing of Rotherham’s Children and Young People and explored the health inequalities that exist for children between Rotherham and the rest of England. The Report described Children and Young People’s health through a life-course approach, from pregnancy and birth, through school years into young adulthood.

The Annual Report aimed to engage with professional stakeholders across the Rotherham Borough, in order to work together and deliver on a clear set of recommendations that will help improve the health and wellbeing of the Borough’s Children and Young People. The recommendations are aimed at all statutory and voluntary partners across the Rotherham Borough area.

The recommendations evolved from sections in the report which highlight ‘our ambitions for Rotherham’. The intention of the Public Health Annual Report is to sit alongside the Health and Wellbeing Strategy and to help inform the actions taken by the Health and Wellbeing Board. It also offers some practical interventions which will improve child health and contribute to reducing the health inequalities across the Borough. Future reports will describe progress against the recommendations and the associated action plan.

The Public Health Annual Report contained seven recommendations. The report also explained the action taken in response to the recommendations of the previous (2014) Public Health Annual Report.

The presentation and subsequent discussion highlighted the following salient issues:-

-          life expectancy in the Rotherham Borough area and the impact of poverty;

-          infant mortality rates; still-births and sudden infant deaths;

-          accidents affecting very young children;

-          physical activity and obesity amongst children and young people;

-          the oral health of young children (also discussed at Minute No. 5 above);

-          educating young people about positive and healthy relationships and good sexual health;

-          mental health issues (including self-harm and suicide);

-          the importance of the accurate recording of health data and statistics.

Resolved:- (1) That the Annual Report be received and its contents noted.

(2) That the recommendations contained within the Director of Public Health Annual Report 2015/16, as now submitted, be supported and progress on the actions taken on the recommendations be reviewed at future meetings of the Health and Wellbeing Board.