Agenda item - Chair's Communications

47 CHAIR'S COMMUNICATIONS

47.1 The Chair gave the following communications:

Covid and Flu

Keeping loved ones safe and healthy is everyone’s priority and one of the best

ways to protect yourself and others is to be vaccinated. Vaccines give safe

and effective protection against severe illness and hospitalisation.

Covid-19 is still around – and it can cause serious infections in some people.

The vaccines are still being offered because viruses change, and protection

fades over time. It's important to top up your protection if you're eligible.

Free jabs are available for:

•             frontline health and social care workers and staff in care homes for older adults

•             residents in a care home for older adults

•             all adults aged 65 years and over

•             anyone aged six months to 64 years who is in a clinical risk group

If you are eligible for a free jab and you haven’t been contacted, you can phone

your GP practice or book an appointment with a community pharmacy,

on the NHS website, by calling 119, or through the NHS app.

Free flu jabs are available for:

•             those who are pregnant

•             all children aged 2 or 3 years on 31 August 2024

•             all children in clinical risk groups aged from six months to under 18 years

•             anyone aged 65 years and over

•             anyone aged 18 to under 65 who is in a clinical risk group

•             anyone in a long-stay residential care home

•             carers in receipt of carer’s allowance, or if you are the main carer of an elderly or disabled person

•             close contacts of immunocompromised people

•             frontline workers in a social care setting.

Inequalities

At the last Board meeting, members were asked to state their biggest priority

for the Health & Wellbeing Board. A majority of us identified reducing

inequalities as the most important thing for the Board to focus on.

This is something that is reflected in today’s agenda. If our aim is to reduce

inequalities, it is vital that we understand the nature of the barriers that some

communities face. The Joint Strategic Needs Assessment is key to developing

an in-depth understanding of the health and care needs of city residents, and

we have an annual update report to consider today. We also have an initial

analysis of the recent Health Counts survey, which will provide us with

valuable data to plan and improve services.

We know that, nationally and locally, people from Black and racially

minoritised communities often have worse health outcomes than White British

people, and we will have a discussion today about whether there is

enthusiasm for establishing a BRM Health Forum to address some of these

issues.

As well as understanding where there are inequalities, we need robust plan

for addressing them, and we need to oversee the delivery of these plans. The

Fuel Poverty & Affordable Warmth Plan sets out how city partners will work

together on this key issue. The paper on the Joint Health & Wellbeing

Strategy: Living Well outlines how well partners are performing in delivering

against the Strategy’s overarching ambitions to increase the number of years

city residents live healthy lives and to reduce the gap in healthy life expectancy

between people living in the most and least disadvantaged areas of the city.

Finally, the report on Integrated Community Teams provides an update on the

implementation of a key measure to tackle inequalities.