Apologies for absence were received from:

Dr Andrew Otley – Merton CCG

Barbara Price – Merton Voluntary Services

Rob Clarke – Health and Social Care Forum

Dave Curtis –Healthwatch Merton

No declarations of Pecuniary Interest were received

The minutes of the meeting on 25 June 2019 were agreed as an accurate record

Jennifer Nolan and Sunita Patel presented their report on the public communications of the final Merton Health and Care Plan. It was confirmed that amendments would be made to the plan before publication including an update on the Merton Story. Board members requested that amendments should include a change to the East Merton Model of Health and Wellbeing, and some changes in accuracy to the children’s section.

The Chair asked the Board to approve publication of the final version, taking into account the amendments specified. He also noted that there would need to be consideration of communications in relation to the Improving Health and Care Together consultation.

RESOLVED: The Board approved plans for public communications of the final Merton Health and Care Plan document

The Director of Public Health presented her report on Priority Actions for the Merton Health and Wellbeing Strategy. Board members supported the priorities and gave examples of how they are already being promoted:

·         Merton Council are encouraging staff to use more active travel

·         There is interest from local businesses, and there was a Healthy Workplace award at the recent Business Awards

·         The CCG will support the Healthy Workplace and Mental Health initiatives

·         There was support for the engagement of Children and Young People, in particular a Young People’s HWBB and asking young people to help set next year’s priorities.

The Board considered further promotion of the plan and suggested that there should be more involvement from MVSC. It was also suggested that partner organisations could promote the plan, for example the Veolia, the Waste Contractors.

The Director of Public Health spoke about ensuring that the outcomes are measurable and that what we measure must have a plausible and relevant link to an outcome so that there is a logical way of influencing outcomes

RESOLVED:

That the Health and Wellbeing Board consider, agree and champion the first of the rolling programme of priority actions for Merton Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2019 – 2024 as:

A.   The new priority of Healthy Workplace, adopting the London Healthy Workplace Award as a framework for developing work places as healthy settings, with an initial focus on mental health and active travel.

B.   Keeping the momentum on tackling diabetes, with a continued focus on tackling diabetes, through a whole systems approach.

C.   To continue to self-develop and improve as a Board to be fit for the future and to consider how to involve children and young people as part of this development.

The Programme Director of Merton Health and Care Together (MHCT) presented her report on The Merton Health and Care Together programme and asked the Board to note that relationships are maturing, work streams progressing with communications plans in place to staff and residents.

The Director of Public Health said that it is important that Merton Health and Care Together and the Health and Wellbeing Board (HWB) work together. It is helpful for the HWB to understand the workplace of MHCT so we can cross check and complement rather than working in parallel.

A discussion about how to fully engage teams within partner organisations took place and the Managing Director of Merton and Wandsworth CCG commented that there is a need to work across south west London to develop the workforce.

Reference was made to a recent MHCT workshop with Chris Ham and the need for every member of MHCT to think about how they can embed the Local Health and Care Plan into their work. Primary Care Networks will also be invited to join MHCT

The Director of Commissioning said that MHCT has helped day-to-day issues get resolved more quickly. MHCT needs to celebrate its successes more e.g. Independent Locality Teams work this year has led to a significant reduction in hospital referrals.

The Chair asked if MHCT becomes a Committee in Common how does this impact on the relationship with the Health and Wellbeing Board?  The Managing Director of Merton and Wandsworth CCG  replied that this supports the need for a good relationship between MHCT and the HWB. The work of the Local Health and Care Plan will be overseen by the HWB. The HWB will ensure join up with the Health and Wellbeing Strategy and other strategies at borough level. It is very important to have strong partnership at borough level and he is glad we have this established in Merton.

The Chair congratulated MHCT on its work to date and looked forward to an update in due course.

RESOLVED

The Board considered and approved Merton Health and Care Together programme update on progress to date and ambitions for 2019-2021

Annette Bunka, Head of Older People and Integrated Care at Merton and Wandsworth LDU, presented her report on the Better Care Fund (BCF) – Plan for 2019/20. She thanked the Chair and Vice Chair for signing off this plan on behalf of the HWB ahead of this meeting so that it could be submitted on time.

The Director of Community and Housing explained that a lot of work goes into these plans and that there had been significant partnership work towards the BCF Plan being signed off in partnership. She thanked the CCG and LBM officers for  this plan especially work the disabled facilities grant which was really impressive.

The Chair of Healthwatch Merton asked about monetary efficiencies – The Director of Communities and Housing explained that historically Merton had not performed well but that targets were now met. The Board noted that it is difficult to ‘monetarize’ such targets

James Blythe explained that much of this work keeps Merton sustainable, reducing demand reducing length of stays, which does link to cash savings and also improves quality and flow. There is a move away from tariff based costs instead looking at using staff and stock most efficiently.

RESOLVED

The Board noted the BCF Plan

The Managing Director of Merton CCG presented his report on the South West London CCGs merger proposals. He explained that all CCgs involved are currently going through the process of voting on the merger. Extensive work has been done preparing draft governance documents. When the merger is approved it will require an update of the Membership and Terms of reference of the Merton HWBB, to reflect the change in statutory body and roles and job titles of CCG representatives. It is likely that the Managing Directors role will become the Locality Director and Director of transformation, and there would be Chair of the Borough Committee

The Chair asked what would happen if not all CCGs did elect to join the SWLondon CCG, and the Managing Director explained that if this happened the first action would be to establish why they had voted in this way and how this could be addressed. He stressed that the plan was for all 6 CCGs to join.

RESOLVED: The Board noted the report