Agenda and minutes

Venue: Virtual Meeting - Virtual address. View directions

Contact: Mark Hardman  Email: constitutional.services@oldham.gov.uk

Items
No. Item

1.

Appointment of Vice Chairs

To note the appointment of Councillor Stretton as Chair and to invite the appointments of Vice Chairs of the Health and Wellbeing Board for the 2020/21 Municipal Year.

Minutes:

RESOLVED – That Dr John Patterson and Majid Hussain be appointed Vice Chairs of the Health and Wellbeing Board for the 2020/21 Municipal Year.

 

2.

Apologies for absence

Minutes:

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Chauhan, Carolyn Wilkins, Dr Bal Duper, Dr Keith Jeffrey, Claire Smith, Liz Windsor-Welsh, Gerard Jones and Rebekah Sutcliffe. 

 

3.

Declarations of Interest

To Receive Declarations of Interest in any Contract or matter to be discussed at the meeting.

Minutes:

There were no declarations of interest.

 

4.

Urgent Business

Urgent business, if any, introduced by the Chair.

Minutes:

There were no items of urgent business.

 

5.

Minutes of Previous Meeting pdf icon PDF 258 KB

The Minutes of the meeting of the Health and Wellbeing Board held on 12th November 2020 are attached for approval.

Minutes:

RESOLVED – that the minutes of the meeting of the Health and Wellbeing Board held on 12th November 2019 be approved as a correct record.

 

6.

Public Question Time

To receive Questions from the Public, in accordance with the Council’s Constitution.

Minutes:

No public questions had been received.

 

7.

Health and Wellbeing Strategy Update

The Director of Public Health will introduce consideration of this item.

Minutes:

The Director of Public Health reminded the Board of discussions at a development session held in January 2020 at which the development of a new Health and Wellbeing Strategy for the Borough had been considered.  A proposal for developing the Strategy had been prepared for submission to the March 2020 meeting of the Board which had been cancelled.  In light of the Covid-19 pandemic much had changed and it had not been possible to progress development of the Strategy in the meantime.  It was therefore suggested that, subject to the approval of the Board, a proposal for the development of the new Strategy be brought to a future meeting of the Board.

 

Comment was made in support of the proposal, noting that much had changed across health and social care settings as a result of the pandemic meaning that how services were offered and how patients and clients would access those services would look very different, and that a new strategy would need to have a strong focus on prevention.

 

RESOLVED – that the report of the Director of Public Health be noted and a report on proposals for the development of a new Health and Wellbeing Strategy for the Borough be brought to a future meeting of the Board.

 

8.

Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment - Supplementary Statement pdf icon PDF 224 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Board was reminded that it held a statutory responsibility to publish and keep up to date a Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment (PNA).  Oldham’s current PNA was due to be reviewed during 2020/21 and the renewed PNA to be published in April 2021.  However, the Department of Health and Social Care had determined that the publication of PNAs would be suspended for one year in order to reduce unnecessary extra pressure on local authorities and Local Pharmaceutical Committees (LPCs) during the response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Oldham’s renewed PNA was now not required to be published until 2022.

 

The Director of Public Health advised that some work to review the PNA had already commenced and a number of required changes identified which could be published in a Supplementary Statement.  A proposed Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment Supplementary Statement June 2020 that included corrections, clarifications and updates to service provision which superseded the original information in the PNA 2018-21 and a previous Supplementary Statement issued on 17 December 2018 was submitted for the consideration of the Board.

 

Comment was made that while there were a large number of pharmacies across Oldham, there were concentrations in particular areas while others were not so well served.  The Director of Public Health advised that the issue had not been highlighted to date but a conversation could be held to consider this issue.  The Board was advised that the CCG had worked over the period of the pandemic to improve contacts with the LPC and Dr Patterson offered to share contacts with the Director of Public Health.

 

RESOLVED that –

1.            the suspension of the requirement to publish the renewed Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment for one year (until April 2022) as determined by the Department of Health and Social Care as a consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic be noted;

2.            the publication of the Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment Supplementary Statement which responds to local changes in pharmaceutical needs at this time be agreed.

 

9.

Oldham COVID-19 Management Plan: How we control outbreaks pdf icon PDF 131 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Board received a report advising on the background to the Covid-19 pandemic and the progression of the national response to date.  The Board was advised on the development of the Oldham Covid-19 Management Plan to meet national requirements for local Outbreak Control Plans, the document providing local direction and guidance to collectively manage and prevent the spread of Covid-19 across our communities. This Plan supplemented the existing Oldham Health Economy Outbreak Plan (2018) by providing specific management arrangements to effectively respond to the unique threats posed by the Covid-19 pandemic and would continue to be reviewed and revised in response to changes in national requirements and advice, and to incorporate learning from implementation.

 

The Director of Public Health made a presentation to the Board considering the four principles behind the development of the Plan: the Plan should be rooted in the Public Health system and demonstrate strong leadership, should present a whole system approach, should be delivered through an efficient and locally effective and responsive system informed by timely data and intelligence, and should be sufficiently resourced.  In regard to the latter point the Board was advised that an allocation of £1.5m had been made for the current financial year.  The Plan needed to consider and address approaches to the prevention and management of local outbreaks.  With regard to prevention, this included access to testing, support for people to isolate, advice on how not to be a contact, hand hygiene, and contact tracing.  With regard to managing and contributing to minimising the impact of any local outbreak, this included building trust and confidence in the local system, having robust data, identified clear roles and responsibilities, and standard operating procedures.

 

Seven themes for the control of any local outbreak had been identified – care homes and school, high risk places, local testing capacity, contact tracing in complex settings, data integration, vulnerable people, and local boards/governance structures – and the actions required in each of these areas was considered.  With regard to governance, the Board was advised that nationally a ‘Health Partnership Board’ to maintain day to day oversight was required: in Oldham this had been established as the Covid-19 Prevention and Control Board chaired by the Director of Public Health and which fed into the Covid strategic command structure which was important if more wide ranging actions needed to be escalated.  The remit of the Member-led Health Protection Sub-Group of this Board had been extended to consider communications with the public and to ensure linkage to this Board.  A local Equalities Advisory Group had also been established in response to national awareness of equalities issues arising through the pandemic.

 

The Board received an Executive Summary of the Management Plan and was advised of next steps, including desktop exercises, developing local plans in response to the Contain Framework published on 17th July, and the continuing review and evaluation of the Management Plan through the Covid-19 Prevention and Control Board.

 

In response to a query concerning circulation of detail to community  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.

10.

Date of Next Meeting

The next meeting of the Health and Wellbeing Board is scheduled to be held on Tuesday, 15th September 2020 at 2.00pm.

Minutes:

It was noted that the next meeting of the Board was scheduled to be held on Tuesday, 15th September 2020 at 2.00pm.

 

11.

Exclusion of Press and Public

That, in accordance with Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the press and public be excluded from the meeting for the following item of business on the grounds that it contains exempt information under paragraphs 1 and 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Act, and it would not, on balance, be in the public interest to disclose the report.

Minutes:

RESOLVED that, in accordance with Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the press and public be excluded from the meeting for the following items of business on the grounds that they contain exempt information under paragraphs 1 and 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Act, and it would not, on balance, be in the public interest to disclose the reports.

 

12.

Oldham COVID-19 Management Plan: How we control outbreaks

Minutes:

Further to Minute 9 above, the Board received the draft “Oldham Covid-19 Management Plan: How we control outbreaks”.

 

RESOLVED that –

1.            the Covid-19 Management Plan and the local arrangements for preventing and controlling the spread of Covid-19 be approved;

2.            the governance arrangements for the Plan be approved.