Agenda item - Chair's Communications

The Chair of the Board will start the meeting with a short update on recent developments on health and wellbeing.

3.1       The Chair gave the following communications:

Physically Active Adults (Aged 19+)

We have recently received data on physical activity in the city. The latest data covers the period November 2022-2024. This period shows that 80.4% of adults aged 19 or over were undertaking 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise per week over the previous 28 days when asked.

The value is statistically significantly higher (better) than the previous year’s result (72.7%). It is indicative of a recovery in the city to pre-pandemic levels of physical activity.

The city’s performance against this indicator is significantly better compared to England (67.1%) and significantly better than the Southeast region (70.2%).

Brighton & Hove ranks 2/152 of all County and Unitary Authorities in England (highest: Bath and North East Somerset, 80.5%).

Brighton & Hove ranks 1st compared to its 15 CIPFA nearest neighbours (2nd highest: Bristol, 75.9%)

Percentage of Physically Inactive adults (aged 19+)

Data is also available on the Percentage of Physically Inactive adults (aged 19+).

The latest results indicates that around 1 in 9 people (10.9%) in the city are “inactive”. People are identified as inactive if they have done less than 30 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity in the past 28 days.

There has been a significant decrease (better) in the proportion of people are identified as “inactive” in the past 12months (2021-2022 = 18.3%) 

The city ranks 1/152 of all County and Unitary Authorities in England for this associated indicator.

At the Health and Wellbeing Board March 2024 we approved “Let’s Get Moving”, our new Sport and Physical Activity and Strategy. We agreed our  vision is to make Brighton & Hove a city where everyone has the opportunity, the encouragement, and the environment to move more, live well and be active for life. Physical activity makes a positive contribution to our physical and mental health and wellbeing, addresses inequalities and improves social and economic outcomes in the city so it’s great to see us doing so well on both of these newly published measures.

Health& Wellbeing Board: New Membership

We have recently changed the membership of the Board, rationalising the number of Cllr members, and offering additional places to our city universities, to Sussex police, to East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service, and to primary care providers. I’m also happy to welcome Stephen Lightfoot, the Sussex ICB Chair, to the HWB. I hope that all these changes will help the Board to work more strategically to improve the health and wellbeing of city residents and to reduce health inequalities.

3.2       As the HWB membership had been revised the Chair thought it might be useful for each member to outline what they hoped the HWB could achieve. Board members all responded:

·         Chair: focus on reducing inequalities and fighting poverty

·         Cllr Grimshaw: reducing inequalities

·         Cllr Burden: advancing health equity

·         Stephen Lightfoot: reducing health inequalities across the whole population of Sussex. Align strategic planning across the Sussex health & care system.

·         Tanya Brown-Griffith: improve population outcomes and achieve better integration

·         Adam Fazakerley: bring clinical experience to the HWB – we need multiple perspectives to solve problems

·         Alan Boyd: embedding patient voice at the heart of services

·         Colin Hicks: address the disparities in mortality experienced by people with mental health problems or learning disabilities

·         Robin Banerjee: better understand the challenges we face and seek to use the work of inter-disciplinary research teams at the university to help meet these challenges

·         Tom Lambert: shine a light on community & voluntary sector work in tackling health inequalities and developing new opportunities for partnership working

·         Deb Austin – ensuring that the voices of children & young people are heard when making decisions

·         Alistair Hill – proving advice and leadership to empower the Board to work effectively to reduce health inequalities and improve healthy life expectancy

·         Steve Hook – focus on developing partnership working to meet challenges.