Agenda item

To consider the attached report.

Fabrizio Ferrari, Public Health Improvement Officer gave an annual presentation regarding the Epping Forest Health & Wellbeing Strategy 2018-2028.

 

The Epping Forest Health & Wellbeing Board was made up of representatives from Epping Forest District Council, Essex County Council Public Health, the West Essex Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and a wide range of health providers and third sector organisations.

 

In March 2018, following an extensive consultation, the multi-agency Board formally adopted and launched the Epping Forest Health & Wellbeing Strategy 2018-28.

 

The Strategy set out the partnership`s vision, priorities and aims to improve the health and wellbeing of everyone living in the district, with a particular focus on tackling the health inequalities that exist.  

 

To facilitate the development and delivery of projects and initiatives to improve the health and wellbeing of local residents, three multi-agency Action Groups have been established as follows:

 

• Start Well Action Group (Pre-birth to 19 years)
• Be Well Action Group (19 – 65 years)
• Age Well Action Group (65+)  

 

The Epping Forest Health & Wellbeing Board and Action Groups annually review key local priorities and develop Action Plans in line with these. Consistently across all age ranges priorities continue to be; the need to support positive mental health, increase physical activity, combat loneliness and isolation and encourage healthy relationships. A priority specific to the Age Well Action Group continues to be the need to support older people to live healthy, happy lives independently in their own homes for as long as possible. 

 

Following the Covid pandemic the Board was keen to focus even more on a whole systems approach in order to support local communities and residents to meet the challenges ahead.

 

Epping Forest Health and Wellbeing Strategy key priorities

 

The strategic priorities were to:

·        Improve the mental health of residents of all ages

·        Increase physical activity

·        Tackle loneliness and social isolation

·        Increase safe and independent living at home.

 

Health and wellbeing Board Structure

 

 

Start Well Action Group (ages 0-19)

Be Well/Work Well Action Group (ages 19-65)

Age Well Action Group Ages (65+)

 

·   Increase Physical Activity ·   Reduce obesity ·   Improve sexual health and healthy relationships

·    Increase Physical Activity ·    Reduce obesity ·    Improve mental health Increase Physical

·  Increase Physical Activity ·  Reduce social isolation ·  Improve safe and independent living at home

 

Health and Wellbeing in Epping Forest

 

Physical Activity: 60.5% of adults were physically active, however only 21.8% of adults were doing enough physical activity to benefit their health and wellbeing. The guidance came from the Chief Medical Officer, he advised that  by exercising 3 times a week for 30 minutes would benefit health.

 

Obesity: This was a huge issue both nationally and locally. 63.9% of adults in the district and 17.9% of 10-11 year olds were overweight or obese.

 

Smoking: 20.2% of adults were smokers.

 

Dementia: 1,780 people aged over 65 in Epping Forest were thought to have dementia. This figure was estimated to rise to 2,770 by 2030.

 

Life Expectancy: This was estimated at 7 years lower for men and 3.5 years lower for women in the most deprived areas of Epping Forest compared to the more affluent areas of the district.

 

Health & Wellbeing Strategy Successes

 

Over the last year the Board has worked through the Health & wellbeing action groups and on a variety of multi-agency projects and have delivered upon the strategy and its priorities.

 

·        Increasing Epping Forest Primary Schools uptake of the Daily Mile Programme. This was an initiative to get children to walk, run or cycle a mile a day.

·        Increased educational support for schools and young people around sexual health and healthy relationships.

·        Increase in referrals to the Active Living Programme – EFDC Lifestyle change programme. People who do no exercise at all were encouraged to do 30 minutes per week and increase this week by week until they were doing 3 x 30 minutes each week.

·        Expansion of the My Weight Matters programme across the district. This was an Essex County Council programme around helping people manage their weight and about supporting people to reduce weight and manage their weight successfully by themselves.

·        Development of residential homes physical activity programme - highlighted as a model of best practice in Essex. We train activity coordinators in residential homes and the aim was to increase physical activity within residential homes. 

·        Epping Forest District Council awarded funding as lead organisation for our strength and balance programme across West Essex working with our partners and that contract was worth £90,000 for this year. The aim was to deliver physical activity programmes with the community to reduce falls.

 

Waltham Abbey and Ongar Health & Wellbeing Programmes

 

During the Pandemic the Board have had to suspend meetings to allow partners to work on their response to the Covid-19 Pandemic. The Board and the action groups have now re-established and met in July, there has been a Board meeting and two action group meetings.

 

Pre Covid-19 the Board agreed to embark on a programme of work using a whole systems approach to tackle health inequalities and were looking at working on two specific areas in the Epping Forest District.

 

The wards had been identified as Paternoster in Waltham Abbey and Shelley in Ongar. This approach had been highlighted and endorsed as a model of best practice by the Director of Public Health at Essex County Council and builds on the success of the pilot project that was done around social isolation in Buckhurst Hill where lots of agencies came together to work on that project.

 

Community consultations had begun with over 150 households in both areas. The doorstep conversations were conducted by staff from the Community, Culture and Wellbeing service. The aim was to find out  people’s needs as we emerge from Covid-19 and the lockdown. Data could only give so much information and we needed to find out from people what they would need from the District Council and wider partners and begin to build a picture of what was going on within our district and particularly those two wards.

 

The findings of the consultation will be shared with partners to develop a multi-agency action plan to deliver against the needs of each area.

 

That was just a brief overview of where the Health & Wellbeing Board were at and the programme of work that we will be embarking on over the next few months.

 

The Chairman thanked F Ferrari for a very comprehensive update and thanked him for the work that he and the team were doing. I would like to ask the Chairman of the Health & Wellbeing Board, Councillor A Patel if he had anything to add.

 

Councillor A Patel advised that he had been a member of the Health & Wellbeing Board for four years and Chairman of that Board for the last two years. During this period of time the Board has really started to establish itself within the community and what has enabled us to get to this level was that we were now able to demonstrate that working with partners from the CGG, Essex County Council, Adult Social Care, Children’s Social Care, together we were really moving forward and doing good in the community.

 

This was a non-statutory function of the District Council which was run on a limited budget, it was therefore credit to the officers that actually represent the District Council in what they were achieving and some of the initiatives that they were now leading on.

 

One of the key drivers as a Health & Wellbeing Board and being the representative on that Board for the District Council had been ‘how can we as a District Council support you’, how can we get involved. We had some real momentum behind us and then Covid-19 came about which halted our progress. I was very happy to see that Board meetings and partner meetings had now resumed and I am looking forward to what the future holds for the Health & Wellbeing Board.

 

The Chairman added that we as a Council have really got this right, the enormous amount of work the officers take on and complete helping the very young to the very old, training others to carry on with work for people in social care. I would like to thank you, Councillor Patel for leading this great initiative and for the work Councillor H Whitbread also contributed to this project.

 

Councillor H Whitbread stated that she was really please to take on health as part of my Portfolio, I think health and housing were intrinsically linked so it was really good to see some joined-up thinking between the Council Directorates and I am really looking forward to working with the team.

 

Councillor S Rackham thanked the Officer for his report saying that it was very interesting and asked in terms of deprivation and poverty with children, how did our figures compare to our neighboring councils.

 

F Ferrari advised that without looking at the statistics of other councils that he wouldn’t be able give the exact figures.

 

Councillor H Whitbread stated that she had recently looked at some work on the statistics but obviously this district does have pocket of key deprivation in Shelley Ward in Ongar and Paternoster Ward in Waltham Abbey and they do compare quite badly with the rest of Essex.

 

Councillor A Patel added that the beauty about the project that they were currently undertaking was the fact that they were actually knocking on peoples doors and talking to them, finding out what there needs were and how the Council and its Partners could help.

 

Councillor D Wixley stated that this strategy was over 10 years from 2018-2028 therefore during that time priorities may change with new ideas coming in especially in light of the Covid-19 issue.

 

F Ferrari advised that priorities would reviewed annually, and added as with anything in health it took a long time to make changes but this would be constantly reviewed.

 

Councillor J H Whitehouse stated that she was a member of the Ageing Well Group and it brought together people from lots of different organisations and was a very interesting Group to be a part of. I would like to refer to the strategy under the heading

‘How will we measure our success’, this was an item that needs to be addressed and ask that it was in the report next time.

 

Councillor J McIvor asked with regard to the sexual health aspect in the report and as we come out of lockdown there will be a lot of socialising with younger people, what specific work was going to be done in the district to keep on top of giving the support available to young people, in relation to sexual health, which was there before lockdown.

 

F Ferrari advised that Epping Forest Youth Council were doing a consultation around this subject and they have amazing videos, ‘Stay Safe’ and all the other resources that they have been producing online. Over the lockdown period we have been working closely with Brook who were actually commissioned by Essex County Council to deliver sexual health services across the district and with extra funding from Public Health services, during the course of this year, were able to give more educational support. In schools it was a part of the school curriculum to be educated about sexual health, relationships and they were having to deliver that even though schools were in lockdown. The results of the Youth Council’s consultation will help to know what else was needed.

 

We were constantly working in terms of all the action groups to promote the sexual health services that Brook were delivering across Essex.

 

Councillor S Murray stated that he realised there would be a difference in life expectancy but was absolutely staggered to have heard tonight that in the districts most affluent wards the life expectancy of the average male was seven years longer than the life expectancy of the average male in the areas of deprivation. He then asked if Members could see the health statistics that were available on a ward by ward basis. Secondly what steps were being taken on the serious matter of mental health problems in young people and what support were we giving them.

 

F Fabrizio advised that he could share links with Members which would potentially show you the information, one report that was interesting was the Health and Equalities briefing which was produced every five years by Public Health England and that was done at a district level and highlights wards, also Public Health England’s website which was called Fingertips and you can find this by doing a Google search. I will also share with the Select Committee the Inequalities Briefing which also has a lot of the information you have requested. In terms of mental health a lot of work has been done with a project the Youth Council have done and this was called the MyLife project. Recently Red Balloon have been helping to deliver that project and have received funding from an innovation award and they will be making an animated cartoon series for pre-school aged children around mental health and that will be going out nationally.

 

Clinical services were hugely stretched, mental health was probably the biggest issue of this generation. In terms of the work we were doing we were working with the various groups to see how we can help them with their capacity and to share information across the system. Mental Health was a priority at Board level in Essex it was recognised that there were huge issues.