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.

35.1    The Chair have the following communications:

Firstly, I’d like to welcome Ian Smith to his first meeting of Brighton & Hove Health & Wellbeing Board. Ian is the new Chair of the combined Surrey and Sussex Integrated Care Board, and we’re really glad that he’s found the time to join us.

We have several reports to consider today. Our first report is the annual report of the Learning from Lives and Deaths of People with a Learning Disability and Autistic people review: LeDeR. LeDeR has been operating since 2017, collating information on some of our most vulnerable citizens. It is essential reading for everyone delivering services in the city.

We also have a report on neighbourhood health. This is an area of increasing focus and we are waiting for statutory guidance which is expecting to give Health & Wellbeing Boards significant new duties to champion neighbourhood health.

We also have a Better Care Fund report today. This provides an update on Quarter 3 performance and outlines what is in the latest BCF planning guidance. In addition, there is a verbal update from NHS Sussex on the latest changes to NHS commissioning.

I also want to remind members that we have a HWB development workshop on March 12^th. All Board members have been invited to this, and I’d like to see as many people as possible attending. The workshop will be led by Jo Webster and Steve Bedser who working with the Local Government Association. We’ve managed to get the LGA to support HWB development and some of you may already have spoken with them to help them get a sense of where the Board and what improvement steps we need to take.

I attended the Sussex Health and Care Assembly meeting on the 23rd

of February. This was as usual an interesting meeting. I would like to mention some highlights. 

- The presentation by one of the East Sussex PCN Teams, of how their day looks like as an integrated Healthcare Hub. It was interesting to hear about how the multidisciplinary teams work together and the connection between clinical health and community health and wellbeing teams.

The questions raised, provided some very good insights. For example, about what type of was measurement was used by the ICT to measure improvement in vulnerable groups like neurodivergent & disabled, ethnic minorities, LBGTQ and the economically deprived. In relation to this question, the support role of housing and educational institutions with

data, was highlighted.

Challenges faced by SPFT with  regards to mental health was on the table and rightly so. It was disclosed that the numbers and complexity of cases were on the rise, but it was encouraging to learn that work is going on to provide the appropriate wraparound support for those feeling suicidal and in crisis. Having one of the highest cases of suicidal deaths nationally averaged at 32 deaths by year, we will be watching this progression. Also mentioned were ongoing reforms on to align community/neighbourhood mental health and wellbeing teams with the ICB was most welcome and it is worth mentioning that initiative has already been established in Brighton & Hove.

Finally, we’re currently in Ramadan. I will call a short break in today’s meeting between 5:45 and 6pm to allow anyone who is observing Ramadan to break their fast.