Agenda and minutes

The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting and invited all attendees to make introductions.

Apologies for the meeting were received from Dr Rupert Suckling, Riana Nelson, Dave Richmond, Ellie Gillatt and Toby Lewis.

The Chair welcomed James Woods, CEO of Citizens Advice Doncaster, to the meeting as an observer.  She explained that James was not yet a formal member of the Board but would be joining in June, in recognition of the huge contribution that Citizens Advice made as an organisation to the Health and Wellbeing agenda.

The Chair, Cllr Rachael Blake, made the following announcement:

“As we go into 2024, I am very aware of the pressures that all organisations are facing but I am really hoping that all organisations will continue with the excellent partnership working that we have.  When looking at the budgets that we have, it is always so easy to think about things such as prevention, supporting carers and the voluntary and community sector as something we don’t always prioritise, but I would encourage everyone to carry on the excellent work we have done to date.  Thank you also for your contributions to the Fairness and Wellbeing Commission.  We now have a huge opportunity and responsibility this year to ensure that we start to take note of the Commission’s recommendations and really see a step change in health and wellbeing and how people in Doncaster are supported to live the lives that they want to.”.

(A period not exceeding 15 minutes for questions from members of the public.)

While there were no questions from members of the public, the Chair asked whether any elected Members in attendance had any questions/statements.

Councillor Leanne Hempshall made a statement concerning the healthcare received by her Mother prior to her death on this date 7 years ago.  This had involved her being admitted into Doncaster Royal Infirmary 3 times during a 7-week period for treatment to lower her calcium levels, caused by her having a benign tumour on her parathyroid gland.  Councillor Hempshall explained that the surgery that her Mum had so badly needed was considered ‘elective surgery’ and she had been told she had to wait for the head and neck surgeon to return from his 4 weeks’ leave, and it had not been possible to obtain the surgery at any alternative locations.  Councillor Hempshall stated that at the subsequent Inquest into her Mother’s death, it had been concluded that the cause of death was a pulmonary embolism due to hyperparathyroidism, in simple terms, a blood clot caused from being inactive due to being bedridden for several weeks waiting for an elective surgery.  In light of the above, Councillor Hempshall put the following 3 questions to Richard Parker:

1. “Do we still only have 1 head and neck surgeon covering Doncaster and Bassetlaw and if they went on leave, would it be covered?

2. How many staff vacancies do we currently have at Doncaster Royal Infirmary and has this figure improved over the last 7 years?

3. Does Richard Parker agree with me when I say people have died due to austerity in Doncaster?”

In responding to the points raised by Councillor Hempshall, Richard Parker began by explaining that staffing levels varied across the different medical specialties in acute hospitals, and in order to manage workloads, the various levels of surgery were prioritised.  Where there were issues in terms of capacity, the normal practice would be to see if other NHS partners could carry out the surgery elsewhere for a particular patient.

With regard to austerity, it was recognised that a wide range of challenging factors, both locally and nationally, had impacted negatively on the provision of services and on the general health of those living citizens living in deprived communities, but Richard stressed that the biggest impact had come from the Covid-19 pandemic in relation to its impact on NHS waiting times for patients.

Richard concluded by stating that he would be happy to look in more detail at aspects of the case described by Cllr Hempshall and provide a full response if Cllr Hempshall provided him with further details.

There were no declarations of interest made at the meeting.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting of the Health and Wellbeing Board held on 9^th November 2023, be approved as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

The Board received a verbal update and presentation by Clare Henry on the development of a revised Health and Wellbeing Strategy.  It was reported that Doncaster's Health and Wellbeing Strategy was overdue and required an update to reflect the significant events and changes that?had taken place since its completion in 2016?.

CDC & Doncaster ICB were collaborating on a comprehensive and integrated approach to addressing the health and wellbeing challenges in Doncaster.?? This would include the co-production of:??

·         a 5-year plan for Health and Care across Doncaster??

·         a new Health and Wellbeing Strategy??

The presentation covered a range of points, including the background and journey so far in developing the strategy, the headlines and potential challenges in relation to findings from the data and the JSNA, resident voice (a summary of who had been consulted and engaged with, the methods of engagement and main findings), emerging themes, the six priority areas identified, potential report structure and next steps.

The Board noted the following timeline for developing the Strategy:

•      11^th January update to HWBB on progress to date

•      15^th January – Place Priority Session - CEOs

•      18^th January – LGA – what can they offer, what do we want to achieve

•      January - Gather “story behind the data” from colleagues

•      3rd & 24th Jan, 5th & 6th Feb - Resident writing panel 

•      9^th February Development Session to:-

•      Agree priorities, identify areas of focus or specific action

•      Start conversation about role of HWBB and potential for LGA support

•      Plan socialisation of strategy

•      Finalise report, design and approval process

With regard to the Board’s development session on 9^th February, it was noted that the LGA would be approached to determine if they could provide some support to assist the Board in reviewing its role and how this might be developed in the future.

The officers then answered a wide range of questions on the presentation and the Board discussed various issues raised, including the following points:-

·         In response to a question from Councillor Sarah Smith on the data behind the numbers of children killed or seriously injured on the roads, as highlighted in the presentation, Clare Henry explained that further information as to the details behind these statistics was needed, so they were intending to carry out a ‘deep dive’ of this issue.  However, she confirmed that early indications were showing that the number of children being injured on roads in Doncaster was higher than the England average and those of CIPFA neighbour authorities.  Councillor Smith pointed out that the ICP Strategy was also looking at the issue of young people injured on roads and she stressed the importance of ensuring that this strategic focus translated into tangible benefits and investment to help alleviate the situation in Doncaster.  In response, Clare Henry stated that she was liaising with ICP colleagues to strengthen links and ensure that this work was joined up.  In addition, the public health team worked closely  ...  view the full minutes text for item 104.

The Board received a presentation by Susan Hampshaw and Carys Williams on the Health Determinants Research Collaboration (HDRC), which provided a summary of the work done to date, the principles and approaches being taken and an overview of next steps. 

It was noted that Doncaster’s bid for funding towards the HDRC had been successful, with just over £5m having been received from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).  The NIHR funding represented significant investment to enable Councils to become more research active and embed a culture of evidence-based decision making. Hosted by City of Doncaster Council and in collaboration with our partners at the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University, the aim was to reduce health inequalities and address the wider determinants of health through our work and approaches.

The overall vision was to focus on growing capacity to develop and use knowledge within our decision-making processes to lead to better outcomes for the local population.

In welcoming the aims of this initiative, Councillor Sarah Smith stated that she was a huge advocate for embedding more research into local government, as although research work was being undertaken by officers, it often lacked the support structure to enable this work to progress to the next level.  She also felt that the HDRC would have a positive impact in terms of fostering a culture of upskilling staff in research, which in turn could help to attract and retain staff and boost morale and ultimately benefit the Council as a whole and its residents.  Councillor Smith also emphasised the importance of encouraging co-production with service users and residents in research projects, and also using fun methods of delivery, citing as an example breakfast learning research sessions which were an effective means of encouraging collaboration, connecting people, and of celebrating the work being undertaken by staff.

Phil Holmes felt that there was more that could be done by leaders to encourage their staff to take up the research opportunities that were being presented by the HDRC in order to ensure that the full benefits and potential of this initiative were obtained.  He felt that this needed to be treated as a priority by leaders rather than taking a passive approach by simply encouraging and supporting those staff who showed an interest.  In response, Susan Hampshaw explained that a staff survey had been conducted to identify where any training needs were in this sphere of work and confirmed that senior leadership could assist by actively championing research with staff via the Personal Development Review process.  She added that it was also intended to carry out a research priority exercise through this Board and across the wider Council.

Dr Nabeel Alsindi queried whether the HDRC could be used as a resource to carry out some work around differential investment with a health inequalities lense, as this was an area of work that had not been fully pursued by the NHS.  In reply, Susan Hampshaw stated that she would be happy to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 105.

The Board received a presentation by Marie Rogerson and Natasha Mercier which gave an overview of the findings of the latest Health Needs Assessment for People from an Ethnic Minority Background and summarised the recommendations and next steps.

It was reported that the Minority Partnership Board was developing a new action plan.  A stakeholder workshop was to be held in a few weeks (date to be confirmed) to develop the plan.  In the meantime, Board members were asked to let Marie, Natasha or Jonathan Goodrum know the names of the leads from their respective organisations who would be attending this event.  It was also proposed that oversight of the action plan would rest with the Health and Wellbeing Board, with regular updates being brought to the Board’s meetings going forward.

During discussion, Dr Nabeel Alsindi queried whether there was scope for carrying out a more detailed breakdown and analysis of this data, if not done already, in order to look at the statistics according to age and gender of individuals to help identify any particular trends in areas such as healthy life expectancy and flu vaccination uptakes across specific genders, age groups or communities.  In response, Marie explained that it was possible to break down the data relating to genders through the census data, however, officers did not have access to the other health service data and this was an area she hoped could be improved upon in conjunction with partners to enable this data to be analysed.  Regarding flu vaccinations, it was acknowledged that there was less uptake amongst certain ethnic minority communities and work was ongoing with those communities to offer assurances to help increase participation in the vaccination programme.

Phil Holmes stated that this was a very timely discussion in light of the Team Doncaster session held yesterday on anti-racist practice.  He explained that partners at that session had committed to a 10 point plan to address promotion of anti-racist practice across their respective organisations and it was intended to reconvene on 20 March to report back on progress.  He felt that the question now was how to connect these two areas of work together so that they reinforced each other.  In reply, Natasha Mercier stated that she had also attended the Team Doncaster event and agreed that there were linkages.  She advised that together with her colleague Arshad Khaliq, she would be able to look at both these pieces of work in order to strengthen the connections and ensure that they complemented each other.

Councillor Sarah Smith also spoke of the importance of ensuring that all the relevant strands of work were connected.  She felt that much of this work was very data-based and therefore felt that it was also important to have a humanities, qualitative understanding of the issues and she suggested that this Board could play a role in overseeing the various pieces of work and ensuring that everything was joined together.  In reply, Rachael Leslie explained that Dr Victor Joseph, who was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 106.