Report(s) attached.

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Mark Trenfield, Public Health Intelligence Analyst, Shropshire Council

Raqueebah Agberemi, Senior Public Health Intelligence Analyst, Shropshire Council

The Public Health Intelligence Analyst, Shropshire Council and the Senior Public Health Intelligence Analyst, Shropshire Council introduced and amplified the following Chapters of the CYP JSNA:

·     Maternity chapter

·     School aged children chapter

·     Young People chapter

The Public Health Intelligence Analyst presented an overview of the pregnancy and birth chapter of the Children and Young People JSNA.  He drew attention to the publicly available Child and Maternal Health Profile Indicators on the Fingertips website, which was produced by OHID, and which enabled a comparison of all authorities against England across a range of indicators.  He then highlighted those areas where Shropshire was doing better than the national average along with those areas where Shropshire was doing worse than the national average. He explained that the full report included deep dives into each of the areas where Shropshire was doing worse than the national average.

The Public Health Intelligence Analyst discussed one of the areas that Shropshire was doing really well in which was low birth weight of term babies for which Shropshire had less of than the rest of the West Midlands and was significantly below the England average. 

Finally, he drew attention to the eleven recommendations contained within the report which had been developed in conjunction with the Early Health and Prevention Partnership Board and with the Children’s Safeguarding Children Board. 

The Chair commented that the Board recognised that for a good start in life, one of the main Marmot principles in terms of what then predetermines an individual’s opportunity to have a healthy life, to prosper and do well, the factors that were being raised and highlighted at this Board became a responsibility for everyone in every interaction, both from a commissioner perspective and in all incidental interactions that took place, to think about these areas when delivering some of those wider services in order to bring the JSNA to life both in the areas they work in and when they go back to their organisations and the messages being taken forward. 

The Executive Director for Health, Wellbeing and Prevention emphasised the importance for the Board to track progress against the recommendations and she confirmed that regular updates would be brought to the Board, and she would look at the frequency and confirm timescales.  The Chairman suggested that future papers demonstrate the link with the JSNA, and the contribution being made towards it.

In response to a query around the access to folic acid metric and whether this had led to higher rates of spina bifida, the Assistant Director Integration & Healthy People explained that more work was needed on the collection of preconception data to more robustly monitor what the level was and what the action was going forward.  There was a strong link with the Women’s Health Hub work to ensure that preconception information went out to mothers to be about the importance of taking folic acid.   It was therefore incumbent upon all members of the Board to think about how to weave this into their work going forward.

The Senior Public Health Intelligence Analyst presented a quick overview of the school aged children (5-16) chapter.  She drew attention to the key findings and recommendations and showed a snapshot of what was included in this chapter.  She reported that most of the indicators were sourced from the children and maternal profile on Fingertips and that the indicators had been split based on school age year.  She drew attention to data around the safe spaces project and that from stakeholder engagement.

She went on to discuss those areas where Shropshire was doing significantly better than the England average along with those areas where Shropshire was doing worse than the England average and she highlighted the areas of need for 5–16-year-olds living in Shropshire before moving on to the draft recommendations.

Turning to the Young People’s (16-19) chapter, the Senior Public Health Intelligence Analyst drew attention to the key findings, and she explained that the recommendations were currently in development and would hopefully be presented to the next Health and Wellbeing Board meeting for approval.  Again, most of the indicators were sourced from the children and maternal profile on Fingertips and again, those areas where Shropshire was doing significantly better than the England average along with those areas where Shropshire was doing worse than the England average were highlighted along with those areas of need for young people.

Board Members felt this work would be very helpful in highlighting where the need was when it came to the recommissioning of services eg CAMHS and BeeU Service along with informing the work around the Youth Justice system.  In response, the Executive Director for Health, Wellbeing and Prevention explained that in terms of the community safety work and children’s safeguarding, this data would be part of the presentation to those groups. 

The Portfolio Holder for Children & Education thanked officers for the huge amount of work that had been undertaken including the work going on behind the scenes and in addressing the recommendations.  The Chair added his thanks to the team for the amount of work that sat behind all this data and stressed the need for Board members to distil that information down into intelligence to influence their work and take it forward.

RESOLVED:

To approve the recommendations detailed within the reports.