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.

21a     Chair’s Communications

21.1    The Chair, Councillor Shanks, stated that she wanted to make Board Members and the public aware of the fact that the testing centre at Withdean was now open. She stated that she wished to stress the importance of everyone following the guidance and of ensuring that anyone went for tests if they exhibited symptoms of the virus. It was noted that a detailed presentation updating on the current situation in respect of the pandemic would be dealt with elsewhere on the agenda.

          Big Health & Care (socially distancing) Conversation

21.2    The Covid-19 pandemic had changed the way health and care services were delivered and accessed. Across the Sussex Health and Care Partnership services had, had to adapt and change to protect staff patients and service users. The *Big Health and Care Conversation had been re-launched so that people’s experiences, questions, ideas and stories around health & care during the pandemic could be used to inform how we move forward with the delivery of our health & care services.

21.3    *The Big Health & Care Conversation was being led by the CCG. They wanted to get staff and patient feedback so that they could work out how we can prioritise and deliver health and care services across the city as we move into the recovery phase.

Conversations were happening online at: https://yoursaysussexhealthandcare.uk.engagementhq.com/the-big-health-and-care-socially-distancing-conversation

Or you can response over the phone or through the post.

21.4    Every two weeks the conversation would be focusing on a new topic. Staff and residents had already been sharing their thoughts on mental health services and accessing A&E during the pandemic, and for the next two weeks the theme was care.

          World Suicide Prevention Day – Thursday 10 September

21.5    Grassroots Suicide Prevention (one of our commissioned services) were launching “Ask Now Save Lives” to challenge the stigma around talking about suicide and promote resources that could help with the conversation, such as suicide prevention training, and the StayAlive suicide prevention app. Every 90 minutes, someone in the UK took their own life. Each suicide was a complex and personal tragedy which devastated those left behind. But together we could help prevent suicide by talking openly and honestly about it – we just had to ask.

21.6    RESOLVED – That the position be noted.

21b    Callover

21.7    It was noted that all items appearing on the agenda were called for discussion.