Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from City Councillor Price and County Councillor Whitehead.

 Antoinette Jackson, Karen Begg, Debbie Kaye and Jyoti Sharma also gave apologies.

This is an opportunity for members of the public to ask a question or make a statement to the Partnership. Please refer to the Public Participation section at the end of this agenda.

There were no public questions.

To approve the minutes of the meeting held on 10 September 2015.

The minutes of the meeting held on 10 September were approved and signed as a correct record.

As a guide this item has been allocated 30 minutes, including discussion time.

Meredith Teasdale, Service Director for Strategy and Commissioning at Cambridgeshire County and lead for this priority will give an update on progress in the main areas of focus for this priority. An extract from the strategy outlining this priority and a background paper showing some of the issues raised for children and young people at a City Diversity Forum is attached.

Members are invited to identify areas where local partnership working might assist in the delivery of this priority.

The full Cambridgeshire Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2012 to 2017 can be found at the link below:

 http://www.cambridgeshireinsight.org.uk/health/hwb

Reducing the impact of poverty on children and helping low income families with the cost of raising a child is also one of the City Council’s priority areas of focus for its Ant-Poverty Strategy, which can be found at the link below:

https://www.cambridge.gov.uk/antipoverty-strategy

Meredith Teasdale, Service Director for Strategy and Commissioning at Cambridgeshire County Council provided an update on progress in the main areas of focus for the priority.

An extract outlining this priority and a background paper showing some of the issues raised for children and young people at the City Diversity Forum had been attached to the agenda for the Partnership’s information.

The Mental Health of Children and Young People Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) 2013 provided an overview of the key issues and needs relating to mental health for children and young people in Cambridgeshire. It was important to identify mental health needs in both children and parents, also addressing the physical, mental health and wellbeing of the family.

Meredith acknowledged that there would be challenges in improving local services for children mental health needs and was looking to increase support for Cambridgeshire Mental Health Service  (ADHT referrals in particular) and decrease high prevalence of self-harm.

The following areas of discussion took place:

·        How to accelerate achievement of pupils claiming free school meals, improving their relative performance compared to other groups.

·        Progress seemed to have been made towards local child poverty targets but there was uncertainty how the new national definition would affect local measurement.

·        Voluntary and community sector groups involved in supporting children and young people lacked a voice in local joint commissioning arrangements.

·        Commissioners may not be aware of the contributions that  the City Council were making in their preventative work with local children, the area partnerships could help fill in some of the gaps.

·        There was uncertainty about the impact of budget savings by the County Council  and some families, especially those with Special Educational Need children, may notice a reduction in the level of support they received.

·        Children’s Centres were now being clustered to reduce costs and additional speech and language support could be dropped.

·        Better transition arrangements for child to adult services, especially between 17 to 19 years old were required, as young people could fall through a gap in the services.

It was suggested that the work of City Council to reduce obesity and promoting physical exercise for children and young people could be presented at a future meeting of the Cambridge Local Health Partnership.

As a guide this item has been allocated 15 minutes, including discussion time.

Gill Hanby, Area Partnerships Manager at Cambridgeshire County Council, will outline the work of South Cambridgeshire and Cambridge City Area Partnerships, highlighting joint work that is taking place.

Members are invited to identify areas where the partnership could add value.

The Cambridgeshire Children’s Trust Plan for 2014-17 and a South Cambridgeshire and Cambridge City Area Partnership progress report is attached.

Gill Hanby, Area Partnerships Manager at Cambridgeshire County Council, gave a presentation on the work of South Cambridgeshire and Cambridge City Area Partnerships.

Each partnership (East Cambridgeshire & Fenland, South Cambridgeshire and Cambridge City and Huntingdonshire) had developed its own local commissioning plan. Area Partnership would inform the Children’s Trust Board of local issues and emerging needs to ensure these could be taken forward in the planning process.

The Cambridgeshire Children’s Trust Plan for 2014-17 and a South Cambridgeshire and Cambridge City Area Partnership progress report had been attached to the agenda for information.

Members were reminded that Children’s Trust worked as a partnership between different organisations to improve the services that were delivered to children, young people and their families across Cambridgeshire, primarily a delivery mechanism for Priority 1 of the Health and Wellbeing Strategy.

The Children’s Trust held a once-a-year meeting to review and set its direction.

The area partnerships were currently promoting ‘Chelsea’s Choice’, a hard-hitting applied theatre production that had proven highly successful in raising awareness of the issues surrounding Child Sexual Exploitation. The play had been performed at the North Cambridge Academy and it was hoped that funding would be available to take the production into local schools next year, as had been done in Huntingdonshire and Fenland.

Members discussed there could be better partnership working with other external organisations particularly with the cuts to Government funding and how this would impact the services provided. 

The area partnership would be holding a meeting / workshop on 28 January 2016, at South Cambridgeshire District Council, discussing Accelerating Achievement and encouraged the Voluntary Services to get involved. 

As a guide this item has been allocated 15 minutes, including discussion time.

Nicola McLean from Cambridgeshire Children’s Service (CCS) will outline the work of the CCS team and highlight issues where additional partnership working could be helpful.

The Executive Summary of the Corporate Parenting Strategy 2015-18 is attached.

Nicola McLean from Cambridgeshire Children’s Service (CCS) outlined the work of the CCS team and advised that everyone who worked with looked after young people and care leavers had the responsibility of a corporate parent, which could be a social worker, councillor and professionals who worked in health, housing and education. These professionals met on a regular basis, known as the Corporate Parenting Board to discuss the important issues involving Looked After young people and what work and support is needed to help young people succeed in lives. It was important for these young people to know what help and support was available and what their rights and entitlements were.

The Corporate Parenting Strategy helped to support children who came into care as the majority of Looked After Children need extra support. The strategy looked at the areas that were needed to support these young people and over the next 3 years would focus on 5 key areas. These were:

     i.        Looked After Children fulfil their educational potential

     i.        Care Leavers successfully gain employment

    ii.        Looked After Children have good health and wellbeing

   iii.        Looked After Children and care leavers are well equipped to be parents

  iv.        Cambridgeshire Looked After Children and young people placed outside of the county are not disadvantaged

Members were advised that at present 90% of children had health assessments within twenty days of being placed into care. The service was aware of the possible increased demand that could arise from migrant children but at present there was no extra capacity in the service at to respond.

Members discussed how Cambridge City had agreed to become one of the first cities in the UK to offer sanctuary to refugees from Syria. There could be an increase in unaccompanied children, so it was hoped that this service could be extended to support these children. No plans were in place at present for doing so.

The HWB Newsletter is attached for information.

The Committee had before them the latest newsletter from the Cambridgeshire Health and Wellbeing Board, with the date of the next Board meeting scheduled for 19 November 2015. The meeting would begin with a personal story, which would be the context for the remainder of the meeting.

Members were advised that Sir Graham Bright, Police and Crime Commissioner, (Cambridgeshire) had been invited to attend the meeting to reflect on priority four of the strategy.

Also on the agenda would be Prevention Work for the Health System Transformation Programme, a quarterly report on the Better Care Fund and the Planning intentions for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough 2016/17.

As a guide this item has been allocated 30 minutes, including discussion time.

·        Cambridge CAB Outreach project at East Barnwell Medical Practice (An update paper is attached for information).

Jane Belman, Cambridge Citizen Advice Bureau, provided an updated on the East Barnwell GP Surgery Outreach Advice Project and began by thanking East Barnwell GP Surgery for supporting the project.

Since the last meeting clients had been advised on reviewing their gas and electric bills as part of the Energy Best Deal initiative and were now working with a stop smoking group in the surgery.  A total of 21 clients had disclosed mental health issues.

Members heard that there was currently an issue with low vaccination rates in the communities covered by the practice, especially amongst families from Eastern Europe and communities with a high turnover.

It was hoped that a similar project model could be extended to the Nuffield Road Health Centre. No decision has been taken by the City Council, as yet, to continue funding the East Barnwell GP Outreach project. The City Council will look at the evaluation of the project and take into account any additional support the practice might make, before taking a decision.

So far the rolling evaluation was carried out by Cambridge CAB appeared to show substantial savings to the NHS. One difficulty was that the Health Centre did not capture these savings, which did not translate into additional income. The practice would look to see if it could contribute to this service.

January 2016 date to be confirmed.

As the date of the next meeting scheduled for 10 March 2016, the Chair suggested an additional meeting should be arranged due to the length of time in between meetings and suggested 28 January 2016.

Committee Manager’s note: The date of 28 January 2016 and has been superseded and the additional meeting scheduled for 11 February 2016, 2.30pm.