Agenda item

To receive a presentation from Peter Rooney, Director of Strategy and Planning.  The draft Strategy and a document explaining the development of the Strategy are attached for information.

Members received a presentation from Peter Rooney, Director of Strategy and Planning NENC ICB Northumberland.  A copy of the presentation is filed with the signed minutes.

Mr. Rooney made the following key points:-

•        The Integrated Care Strategy (ICP) was a statutory committee involving partner organisations and stakeholders and formed part of the arrangements for the Integrated Care System (ICS).  It was required to develop an Integrated Care Strategy by December 2022.  ICBs and local authorities were required to have regard to the strategy when making decisions and commissioning or delivering services.  The strategy must use the best evidence.

•        The structure, and overarching visions, goals and enables were outlined.  The vision was to create better health and wellbeing for all through longer healthier life expectancy, excellent health care services and fairer health outcomes.  This could be achieved through the workforce, working together to strengthen communities, using improved technology, equipment and facilities, and making best use of resources and protecting the environment

•        Assets and Case for Change – health outcomes were some of the worst in England with inequalities correlating with socio-economic deprivation.  Life expectancy and healthy life expectancy for both women and men were lower than the England average.

•        Draft Key Commitments were:-

•        Reduce the gap in healthy life expectancy

•        Reduce smoking prevalence from 13% of over 18s in 2020 to 5% of below in 2030.

•        Reduce inequality in life expectancy between the most deprived and least deprived deciles within ICP by 25% by 2030.

•        Reduce suicide rate to below England average in 2019/21 by 2030.

•        The Core20plus5 approach was designed to support ICS to drive targeted action in healthcare inequalities improvement.  Aimed at the most deprived 20% and at the following five key clinical areas; maternity, severe mental illness, chronic respiratory disease, early cancer diagnosis, hypertension case finding

•        It was aimed to achieve a ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’ CQC rating and improve sustainability of the most challenged parts of the system.  To enable personalised care and improve support to unpaid carers.  The development of provider collaboration would be supported.  To ensure parity of esteem between mental health, learning disability, autism services and physical health.  Integration to be improved and services valued equally across sectors.

•        A lot of engagement work was taking place and any feedback on the draft strategy was welcomed.

•        It was hoped that the local areas would continue with the fantastic work they were already doing. 

•        The draft would be considered again by the ICP on 15 December 2022.

The following comments and responses were made:-

•        It was possible that when targets were set for such a large geographical area such as Northumberland, some measures may disadvantage some other areas and it was important to avoid this.  Improvements in all metrics, everywhere was desirable but obviously, the biggest improvement should be where it was most needed.  Some difficult decisions would need to be made.  Some measures had a minimum baseline which should not be reduced such as healthy life expectancy. 

•        Ambulance service – there were many examples of patients not getting the service that they should across a number of NHS standards and commitments.  It had been decided to look at more long-term population health measures and deal with the challenge of rebalancing longer term ambitions and immediate service delivery.

•        Issues relating to children needed to be addressed and was currently underdeveloped in the strategy.  Any appropriate evidence would be welcomed.  Most comments relating to children were in relation to their emotional and mental health.

•        If society was fairer and there was less deprivation, then some of the health related issues would solve themselves.  Three issues to look at were how to engage with partnerships, how we advocate and that there were things that could be done for example regarding people from deprived areas tended to present late with their symptoms.

•        The strategy may mean different things for different communities, particularly in a very diverse county such as Northumberland.  There needed to be focus where it was most needed.  It may be possible to describe what it may mean for each local authority area.

Members were welcome to pass any further comments on to Gill O’Neil or Graham Syers, in order that a formal response could be submitted.

RESOLVED that the presentation be received.