Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Councillor Whitehead and Liz Robins.

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.

To approve the minutes of the meeting held on 14 September 2016

The minutes of the meeting of the 14^th September 2017 were agreed and signed as a correct record.

Katie Johnson, Specialty Registrar in Public Health, will outline the findings from the PNA and discuss changes in the role of local pharmacies moving forwards.

A summary of the Key Findings from the Cambridgeshire Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment is attached.

The Partnership received a presentation from Katie Johnson, Specialty Registrar in Public Health, regarding the key findings from the Cambridgeshire Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment as per the agenda.

The Partnership discussed the report and raised the following concerns:

     i.        Partnership members had attended recent consultation events (to re-base the Out of Hours service) where it had been suggested that pharmacies would be encouraged to open for longer hours to compensate for the withdrawal of the service. Katie said she was not aware of this proposal.

    ii.        Expressed the hope that predicted demographic changes and new settlements will be considered alongside existing needs in order to avoid future health inequalities. It was felt that services should be in place at an early point within new communities before the demand for them was fully manifest, to help people settle.

   iii.        Suggested that imposing a national contract on Pharmacies was unfair and appreciated it might be difficult to predict what the local consequences for provision might be, once it had been implemented.

  iv.        Confirmed that the existing practice of providing an establishment fee for new pharmacies would be replaced by a contract offering higher payment per item, which might assist smaller pharmacies.

   v.        Appreciated that PNA would be revisited if some pharmacies become unviable and signal that they might close. The Partnership asked to be informed of any concerns about local provision.

  vi.        Susanne McBride confirmed that planners considered existing provision when new communities were planned. If there was no provision locally, additional support could be investigated to help a pharmacy until demand picked up with the growth of the community.

Kate Parker, Head of Public Health Business Programmes at Cambridgeshire County Council, will advise the partnership of agenda items that were considered at the Health Committee meeting on 16 March 2017 and the outcome of any considerations by the committee. 

The agenda for the meeting, the paper about the proposed change to the Chesterton Out of Hours base (including Health Impact Assessment and letter from City Executive Councillor) and a report on Cambridgeshire’s Air Quality is attached. 

The CCG said that it would bring back the key findings from the Out of Hours base consultation on to the Health Committee meeting and take forward comments for consideration by the CCG’s Governing Body on 21 March. No report was available at the time of publication.

Kate Parker, Head of Public Health Business Programmes at Cambridgeshire County Council, updated the Partnership on the work of the Cambridgeshire Health Committee.

Kate Parker explained that although the Cambridgeshire Health Committee had no decision making powers, it had dual functions- a statutory duty to scrutinise the National Health Service and a remit to comment on wider Public Health matters.

The Committee had considered a number of matters including a proposal to move the Out of Hours service from its current location in Chesterton to the Addenbrooke’s Hospital site. The Council had received a public petition asking for the consultation to be re-run because it had not considered the impacts of the proposed change on a range of groups of people in line with the Equality Duty.

The following concerns regarding relocating the service had been raised at the Committee:

     i.        It would disadvantage the local community because they would have difficulty getting to the new site because public transport was so limited.

    ii.        The proposed move did not consider the original reason for the location of the service, which was to be accessible to the most deprived communities in Cambridge The consultation process, was inadequate because very little effort was made to consider the impacts of the change across each of the groups of people with “protected characteristics”.

   iii.        Insufficient mitigations had been offered for communities affected by the changes.

It was said that Cambridgeshire Health Committee had been split when considering the proposal, with only a narrow voting in favour (with caveats) of the change.

The Partnership raised the following concerns regarding the decision:

     i.        The consultation process had been inadequate.

    ii.        The Equality Impact Assessment had been limited and special need groups, such as Traveller communities, had not been consulted, with potential disadvantages to women not considered.

  iv.        The consultation did not present sufficient and good information to allow local people to reach an informed view.

   v.        Awareness of the consultation was limited in the local community and engagement with community groups had been minimal.

The Partnership asked what room there was to appeal against the decision to support the proposed change. It was said that there was limited opportunity for the Health Committee to do much more than raise concerns about the process because the change was probably not sufficient to warrant a referral to the Secretary of State, who could ask the CCG to reconsider a proposal. The Partnership asked to be kept informed about what mitigation the CCG would come forward with to ensure local people weren’t too disadvantaged by the change.

The Partnership agreed that their concerns should be formally fed back to the Cambridgeshire Health Committee. Councillor Johnson undertook to write to the Chair of the Committee outlining the Partnerships concerns.

The Cambridgeshire Health Committee also considered air quality and its effect on public health. Yvonne O’Donnell gave an update on the City Council’s contribution.

     i.        Improving air quality is a priority for Cambridge City Council.

    ii.        Emissions from busses and taxis  ...  view the full minutes text for item 17/5/CLHP

Kate Parker, Head of Public Health Business Programmes at Cambridgeshire County Council, will advise the partnership of agenda items that will be considered at the next HWB meeting on 30 March 2017.       This is likely to include: Progress with the STP, Developing the Better Care Fund Plan and Dual Diagnosis of Mental Health and Substance Misuse issues. No report was available at the time of publication.

The HWB last met on 19 January 2017. Details of this meeting can be found here:

              https://cmis.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/ccc_live/Meetings/tabid/70/ctl/ViewMeetingPublic/mid/397/Meeting/156/Committee/12/Default.aspx

For the interest of members a report showing progress with the STP, provided to the 19 January meeting, is attached.

Kate Parker updated the Partnership on agenda items to be considered at the next Health and Wellbeing Board. In addition to the formal meeting the HWB would also be holding a workshop to look at the relationship between Local Health Partnerships and the emerging Area Executive Partnerships of the CCG. Representatives from the Local Health Partnerships would be invited to attend. Councillor Johnson said that he would be attending.

Yvonne O’Donnell, City Council Environmental Health Manager, will talk about the work of the group, which includes the Cambridgeshire “Let’s Get   Moving Programme (previously reported to the partnership)”, the Cambridgeshire Healthy Weight Strategy and other joint working initiatives between public health and district councils.

Yvonne O’Donnell gave an update on the work streams of the Public Health Reference Group such as:

     i.        The Let’s Get Moving Cambridgeshire initiative had been put in place to help coordinate physical activity programmes and had achieved some success already.

    ii.        The roll-out of the Healthy Workplace initiative was underway in each of the Cambridgeshire district councils.

   iii.        Links were being established tie our local “food” work with the Healthy Weight Strategy.

  iv.        The use of Health Impact Assessments was going to be promoted within the Council.

The Partnership agreed that joint working to improve public health was the way forward and that this would include a diverse range of partners who may not initially appear to have the same interests.

A representative of Cambridge CAB will introduce the progress report is attached.

Rachel Talbot updated the Partnership on the Advice on Prescription project led by Cambridge Citizens Advice Bureau.

This project had been very successful and further funding had been secured to enable it to expand.

The Partnership made the following comments:

     i.        Welcomed the news that GP’s had reported that the service was having a significant positive impact on patients, with a corresponding reduction in GP appointments for those individuals.

    ii.        The location of the Arbury drop-in service, opposite the North Area Housing Office, was particularly welcomed.

   iii.        The impact of debt on mental wellbeing was noted.

  iv.        Further work was needed with health professionals to make them aware that the service was available and could be extended further.

   v.        Taking services out into the community was seen as key to the future development of Cambridge CAB as local people often didn’t want to travel to receive advice – they needed it at the right time.

The Partnership requested further information on Social Prescribing and suggested this as a future agenda item.

The next meeting of the Cambridge Local Health Partnership will be on 29 June 2017, starting at 12 noon in the Guildhall.

The next meeting of the Partnership would be on 29^th June 2017. This was likely to involve a networking event shortly thereafter, where refreshments will be available.