Agenda item

Councillor Roche, Cabinet Member, introduced the 2018 independent annual report.  For the previous three years, the annual reports had focused on the life course; the 2018 report took a new approach and sought to champion the strengths of Rotherham’s local communities and share experiences of what kept its residents healthy, happy and well.

The general public had been asked to submit photographs which showed what kept them healthy, happy and well where they lived.  These were then grouped by theme and found that they fell into two main themes – community and the environment – as well as capturing all five of the ‘five ways to wellbeing’.

The 2018 annual report was broken down into chapters on:-

-          What does keeping healthy, happy and well in Rotherham mean to you

-          Our communities

-          Five ways to wellbeing

-          What can we do to support health and wellbeing

-          Recommendations

-          What we will do together

-          Progress on last year’s recommendations

The key recommendations in the report were:-

-          Consider ‘health and wellbeing’ in the wider context of being influenced by everything around us

-          Seek first to understand what is ‘strong’ in our communities and what assets we can build on together to support the health and wellbeing of our residents.

Terri Roche, Director of Public Health, gave a presentation via PowerPoint which highlighted:-

·           What does it mean to be healthy in Rotherham? 

·           Health influencing factors.

·           Recommendations – consider health and wellbeing in the wider context, what is strong and what assets can build on together.

·           What can be done together?

A discussion and a question and answer session ensued and the following issues were raised/clarified:-

·           How was Wickersley chosen to host the loneliness project, when it was thought other areas may have benefitted from the research more?

       Multi-agency groups in Wickersley, Dinnington and Maltby explored projects to work on together.  The group in Wickersley were aware of issues around loneliness for all services and chose to run with it.  Comments on the choice of area and disjointedness would be taken back but loneliness did not demonstrate barriers and it was a factor for all age groups. 

·           The asset/strengths based approach was positive, as was the five steps to welling being simple and evidence based.  This process seemed increasingly disconnected and disjointed when much more impact could be achieved if there was joined up work with adults, community learning and some of the work with older people, neighbourhood working etc.  Of concern was the growing level of inequalities in health with the need for discussion on this and how the resources could be targeted at communities who needed them most. 

       In looking at universal proportionalism and how inequalities could be addressed resources were getting tighter.  However, it was time to make a real difference through our good partnership model, with a good Housing Strategy incorporating homelessness, neighbourhood ways of working and robustness in Equality Impact Assessments were building blocks bringing the work together.  This was about engaging with communities and using that intelligence in a different way.

·           There were inequalities of health and it was appreciated that there was a universal approach, but how could this be driven to encourage others to be connected and for this to link some important areas of work in the community and adult learning.  The five ways to wellbeing could be used to target some of the energy and resources in the most deprived areas suffering inequalities.

·           The issues were bigger than Public Health and it was more about how a real difference could be made to the community to ensure the most deprived areas were supported.

       There were strengths and a weakness in neighbourhood working as it was reliant upon relationships and personalities and there were opportunities and risks.  It was about working better together; this was working in some areas, but it could always be better.  Some of the work in Paul Walsh’s team was more globally working well.   In time there was more to scrutinise and to challenge ourselves on health equality in all policies.  In the political arena there were opportunities for working differently, for good practice to be shared with a systematic way of working more widely.

·           How many volunteers were there as some actions were channelled through areas that had Parish Councils.  More broadly, it was about keeping volunteers going including how well the VAR volunteer scheme matched up people and opportunities.  It was also about contract monitoring to ensure quality.  So how could there be scrutiny of the work being undertaken and how it was being delivered to be equal.

       It was not possible to comment on how VAR could be scrutinised, but they were part of the solution.  Volunteers did not have to be outside their home to be able to offer valuable support.  With the free flow of volunteers it was difficult to control, but different ways of working and different models sometimes stifled the flow.    Some of the MESMAC activity was positive on how they reached people.

       When the contract was up for renewal there might be an opportunity for more input around the volunteering scheme and this would be followed up.

·           Consideration needed to be given to the best forum for volunteers and the offer and whether there was a role for Scrutiny.

·           Wellness schemes only worked if people engaged.  Wellness goes to the root, but did require individual citizens to change their own lives.   In more deprived neighbourhoods this might be more difficult and somehow citizens had to be motivated and engaged.  To what extent would Social Prescribing help to achieve this?

       Behavioural changes were challenging in addressing some of the inequalities.  There was some reliance on individual experiences, but self-prescribing could work for some people.  It was more about societal changes within the environment people lived, worked and played to make them more healthy.

·           In terms of the Members’ Cycling and Walking Group, what initiatives encouraged people to engage in cycling and walking as a means of getting active and was there a link with cycling with travel and transport planning.

       There were many initiatives that encouraged walking with the health walks, the cycling hub located regularly outside Riverside House on a Thursday and staff could also try out the electric bike.  There was also a link to active travel and Regeneration and Environment were looking to link the Members’ Cycling and Walking Group to the Rotherham Active Partnership.

·           The report referred to 13.4% people in Rotherham suffering with depression.  How did this compare with other areas or nationally and was it increasing or decreasing over time.

       Accurate figures would be provided. 

Resolved: - (1) That this Commission’s concerns about health inequalities be raised with the Health and Wellbeing Board and the Rotherham Partnership.

(2)  That the actions below be supported:-

o      Continuing to raise awareness of the ‘Five ways to wellbeing’ and working together to tackle loneliness and social isolation

o      Supporting the continued development and expansion of Social Prescribing as laid out in the NHS Long Term Plan

o      Continuing to support healthy work, through initiatives such as the ‘working win’ trial and promoting uptake of the BeWell@Work workplace award.