To receive any apologies for absence.

Apologies for absence were received from Alex Tilley, Tessa Lindfield, Tracy Hendren, Emma Congerton, Tess Scott, Lin Ferguson and Councillor Taylor.

Jo Dixon and Jonas Thompson-McCormick were attending as substitutes.

To receive any declarations of interest.

There were no declarations of interest received.

To consider the minutes of the meeting held on 4^th April 2023.

AGREED UNANIMOUSLY: That the minutes of the meeting held on 4^th April 2023 were agreed as a true and accurate record.

To understand the priorities and principles of the plan and how these will be delivered by the council.

Reporting officer: Pauline Peters – Senior Transformation Lead, Children and Young People

Pauline Peters, Senior Transformation Lead for Children and Young People, gave some context on the creation of the plan. In July 2022, system partners came together to discuss how priorities could be aligned. Around 17 organisations took part in the workshop with around 60 delegates. Feedback from frontline staff had been gathered to guide discussion. Four task and transition groups had been formed around leadership and strategy, building connectivity, remove the need for labels to access support and proactive not reactive. Five priority areas were identified and these were supported by a number of overarching principles:

• The first priority was to be healthy, ensuring that children and young people could enjoy good physical and mental health and live a healthy lifestyle.
• The second priority was to be safe, to allow children and young people to be protected from harm and neglect and grow up being able to look after themselves.
• The third priority was to be skilled, to encourage children and young people to get the most out of life and develop skills for adulthood.
• The fourth priority was to be financially secure, to equip children and young people to overcome socio-economic disadvantages so that they could achieve their full potential in life and enjoy economic wellbeing.
• The fifth priority was to be heard, allowing children and young people to feel listened to, take their views into account and involve them directly when looking to design or improve services.

Pauline Peters shared a video with the Board which had been created by young people visually explaining the plan.

The Chair highlighted that the fifth priority was already being delivered, as children and young people had been involved in the development of the plan. She asked if the plan could be considered by the People Overview and Scrutiny Panel.

ACTION – Children and Young People’s Plan to be referred to the People Overview and Scrutiny Panel for consideration at a future meeting.

Stephen Dunn, Director of System Delivery and Flow and Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, said that the plan embodied the change in culture that was being aimed for. He presumed that there would be an action plan to follow up the work in the plan. Stephen Dunn asked which areas of the plan would provide the most significant difference and benefit from Board support.

Pauline Peters highlighted that the connected care platform could be utilised and this would ensure that children did not slip through the net as a result of data being appropriately shared across various sectors. The plan was designed to encourage organisations to consider how they could work collaboratively together, particularly at an earlier stage. Investing in preventive resources could prevent a bottleneck situation in terms of accessing more specialist services. The child needed to be kept at the centre of the focus to achieve the best results.

Kevin McDaniel, Executive Director of Adult Services and Health, said that his understanding of connected care was around patients and data. He questioned whether educational data could  ...  view the full minutes text for item 342/15

To hear of the support which the Local Government Association can provide the Health and Wellbeing Board going forward.

Reporting officers: Caitlin Corley – Local Government Association

Claire Lowman – Service Lead, Public Health

Claire Lowman, Service Lead – Public Health at RBWM, explained that this was an opportunity to refresh the Health and Wellbeing Board with the support of the Local Government Association (LGA). New guidance had been published by the Department of Health and Social Care in November 2022 which clarified the role and duties of Health and Wellbeing Boards. This also saw the establishment of Integrated Care Boards, with the Frimley Integrated Care Board being launched in July 2022. A number of opportunities had been identified for the Health and Wellbeing Board:

• To take an approach that will deliver to improve the health of the population and reduce health inequalities through prevention activities.
• To use insight and data, including the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment, to influence and shape decision making to deliver outcomes in the joint health and wellbeing strategy.
• To inform and engage with residents to co-create solutions to improve health and wellbeing.

Caitlin Corley, LGA, said that the LGA could provide tailored support to health and wellbeing systems to achieve strategic vision, priorities and objectives. Support was also provided to strategic leaders to play full and leading roles while supporting partnership working. Various methods were used, for example regional networks, mentoring, action learning sets and an annual leadership summit. An initial scoping conversation would take place to understand what package of support could be provided. Timescales and objectives would then be identified and these would be evaluated to see where outcomes had been achieved.

Kay Burkett, LGA, explained that support could be provided from a number of angles, depending on what was deemed to be the best fit. Peer associates would be equivalent with members of the Health and Wellbeing Board.

Jonas Thompson-McCormick added that the Board were being asked if they wanted to take up the free offer of support from the LGA.

Huw Thomas, Place based Clinical Lead Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, welcomed the support offer, this was a good opportunity to see where improvements could be made. He felt that RBWM was the right level rather than looking at the whole system.

Pauline Peters noted that the Health and Wellbeing and the Children and Young People’s Plan were both informed by the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment. Priorities across various areas needed to be considered to avoid a duplication of effort.

Kevin McDaniel and Stephen Dunn agreed that it was good timing and suggested that the Board could learn from best practise.

The Chair said that she was happy to go ahead with the offer, she suggested that it could be discussed at her next internal briefing with officers to understand the next steps along with the officer resource which would be required.

ACTION – Kevin McDaniel to work with Jonas Thompson-McCormick and Claire Lowman to provide an update at Councillor Del Campo’s Cabinet Member briefing.

To consider the briefing note which provides an update on the housing services across RBWM.

Reporting officer: Alex Szantai – Housing Operations Manager

Alex Szantai, Housing Operations Manager, said that a briefing note had been circulated to the Board as part of the agenda. There was currently a lot of pressure on the housing options team along with sourcing good in borough temporary accommodation. The code stated that all homeless people should be rehoused in the borough but this was not a realistic and not the best option in a lot of cases. The current figure was less than optimal at around 50% of families being rehoused in the borough, however, this was a common problem amongst a number of local authorities.

Kevin McDaniel had recently attended the LGA Annual Conference and one of the main themes was the availability of housing stock, both temporary and permanent. There was preventative work which could be done to prevent families from becoming homeless.

Alex Szantai said that the disabled facilities grant and housing allocations policy were due to be considered by Cabinet in July and these would provide flexibility to allow families to remain in their current property.

Huw Thomas said that there was a significant impact on residents who were moved out of the borough, particularly when the support services were located in a different place. The redevelopment of John West House was welcomed, Huw Thomas asked how many units would be made available as part of the project and whether there would be space for outreach work.

Alex Szantai confirmed that the plan was for double figure provision to be made at John West House and it would be a supportive environment in the form of a hub. The team tried to keep rough sleepers in the borough as they were aware of the potential negative impact being relocated out of borough could have on families and individuals.

Kevin McDaniel said that funding needed to be acquired for regulatory changes at John West House, this funding had now been secured.

The Chair asked if the process for confirming how many rough sleepers there were in the borough could be outlined.

Alex Szantai explained that all reports of rough sleeping came into the team, visits were then made. If the individual was from another borough, they would be referred to the relevant local authority. If they were a RBWM resident, they would be given accommodation and support. A head count of the number of rough sleepers was done each year to build a benchmark. Rough sleepers could be reported to the team through the website.

Stephen Dunn commented that at Wexham Park Hospital there were a number of patients being admitted but there was also a delay in discharge due to the lack of temporary accommodation available.

Alex Szantai said that through government funding a cross Berkshire coordinator had been recruited who would be looking at the hospital discharge process.

ACTION – Alex Szantai to share contact details of the Berkshire coordinator with Stephen Dunn.

The Chair asked if the council had good connections with other homeless organisations in the borough and charities like  ...  view the full minutes text for item 344/15

To receive an update on the Better Care Fund.

Reporting officer: Prince Obike - Integrated Care Transformation Senior Manager

Prince Obike, Integrated Care Transformation Senior Manager, said that integration across partners was key to delivering high quality and sustainable health and care services. The Better Care Fund (BCF) group was responsible for the delivery of the BCF plan and shared progress. There would be a two year plan from 2023-2025 and the key programme objectives would remain the same, setting out the priority focus on reducing pressure on urgent elective care. The planned expenditure of the BCF was £15.6 million in Year 1 and £16.5 million in Year 2. This would help to deliver some of the ambitions and targets of the BCF. Prince Obike highlighted some examples of positive impact, including the Home First scheme, Citizen Advice and the Innovation Fund.

The Chair asked when planning would start for the 2025-2027 plan.

Prince Obike said that the plan for 2023-2025 had been submitted and the Board had delegated authority to run the BCF on a day to day basis.

Kevin McDaniel noted that £100,000 had been allocated to preventative approaches with voluntary organisations. It was important from a place perspective to ask questions about prevention at place.

Stephen Dunn added that Home First was designed to get patients back home as quickly as possible to minimise the amount of care support needed. More could be done on the prevention front.

Councillor Werner thought the Innovation Fund was a great system but wanted to ensure that it was sustainable and self-funded. He raised concern that there were cases were patients were moved home too soon, he asked if there was any work being done to ensure that the timing was right.

Prince Obike said that organisations were able to post information on the various projects which had taken place as a result of the Innovation Fund. Following the end of the funding, the team could work with organisations to identify other sources of funding which were available.

Stephen Dunn said the level of readmission was tracked by Frimley and whether patients had been discharged too soon. The decision to discharge was made once the patient was medically optimised and ensured that going back home was the correct choice at the time.

Kevin McDaniel added that there was a cohort of people which would often be readmitted to hospital.

·         Tuesday 10th October 2023

The Chair said that there had been a suggestion from Councillor Price on long covid, this would be considered at the next meeting.

Councillor Reynolds suggested that an item could be considered on the options for reopening the walk in centre at St Marks Hospital.

ACTION – Kevin McDaniel to explore with ICS colleagues how the proposed agenda item on St Marks Hospital could best be discussed by the Board.

Jo Dixon, Healthwatch, said that she had recently been given a walk through of St Marks Hospital, there were some positive benefits to the model which they were currently running.

Kevin McDaniel said that an update on the support offer from the LGA, as discussed earlier in the meeting, could be provided in October.

The next meeting would take place on Tuesday 10^th October 2023 at 3pm.