Agenda item

The Director of Public Health reported that the Health Inequalities Plan had been developed through the Health and Wellbeing Board and it set out the actions that the Health and Wellbeing Board partners were due to take over the next two years to reduce the gap in life expectancy within Oldham and between Oldham and England.

In common with many other areas in England, Oldham had seen health and health inequalities worsen in the decade between 2010 and 2020. Life expectancy had stopped increasing, inequalities between groups widened, and for the poorest people in the borough life expectancy had declined. Since 2020 the Covid-19 pandemic had further exposed and amplified inequalities in health and the social determinants of health in Oldham, Greater Manchester, as in the rest of England

The persistent inequalities in health in Oldham, and the various missed opportunities this generated for all the Borough’s residents, particularly the most disadvantaged, were well recognised. Improving health outcomes, but also wider economic and social outcomes, could not be achieved without concerted effort to address health inequalities and inequalities in the social determinants of health.

In November 2021, the Health and Wellbeing Board’s members had agreed to develop a Health Inequalities plan for Oldham, which would set out the key actions which will be taken by the Oldham system in response to the stark challenges the borough faces in health inequalities and drawing on the recommendations of the Greater Manchester Build Back Fairer report into health inequalities in the Manchester City region and the Oldham Public Health Annual Report 2021.

A working group had been established and had met to develop the plan, reviewing key themes highlighted in the Greater Manchester Marmot Build Back Fairer report and the learning from a wide range of engagement activity undertaken in the borough over the last two years. A final plan had been produced and was agreed by the Health and Wellbeing Board, at its meeting on 21^st June 2022.

The plan was intended to be action focused, as opposed to a long strategy document. A lot of the pre-work had been done through the Marmot and Independent Inequalities Commission reviews of Health Inequalities in Greater Manchester. Levels of need and the scale of the health inequality challenge and opportunity to improve were documented in the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment and the forthcoming Public Health Annual Report 2021.

The scope of the plan is necessarily broad, and as such this plan aims to reflect and amplify actions already included within other related plans, as well as identify new actions which could impact on reducing health inequalities. The focus of the plan is on actions which can be delivered within in 2 years or less given the pace with which health inequalities need to be acted upon and the ever-changing environment within which the system operates. It is however recognised that reducing health inequalities will need to be a priority for the borough for the long term is progress is to be made.

The Director of Public Health reported that the primary outcomes which the plan was aiming to achieve were to reduce the gap in life expectancy and health life expectancy within Oldham, and between Oldham and the national average, ensuring that all residents could experience the best possible health and wellbeing throughout their lives. The Greater Manchester Build Back Fairer report proposed a series of indicators which could be used to monitor progress in addressing health inequalities. It was therefore proposed that these be adopted to monitor progress in Oldham. Developing a dashboard which tracked these indicators and provided an overview of progress in achieving the actions outlined in the plan, was now seen as a priority.

The Committee considered the report, and its findings, in some detail. It was suggested that the representatives of the Committee’s membership, the Policy Overview and Scrutiny Committee and that of the Health and Wellbeing Board work together to determine the best ways of tackling health inequalities in the Borough, possibly as the subject of a ‘task and finish’ group.

Resolved:

1.    That the Committee notes the report, including the contents of the health inequalities plan

2.    That an initial informal meeting between the Director of Public Health, representatives of the Committee’s membership, the Policy Overview and Scrutiny Committee and that of the Health and Wellbeing Board be convened to jointly determine the best ways of tackling health inequalities in the Borough of Oldham - possibly as the subject of a ‘task and finish’ group.