Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Oonagh Moulton, Dr Andrew Otley, Chris Lee, Hannah Doody and Brian Dillon

There were no declarations of interest.

RESOLVED: That the minutes of the meeting held on 8 October 2019 are agreed as an accurate record.

The Director of Public Health presented her update report on existing and new work related to emotional health and wellbeing in Merton. The Board commented that this report was comprehensive and recognised the joint working in this area.

The Managing Director of Merton and Wandsworth CCG said that a big part of this is addressing de-stigmatisation. The report outlined good things being done, but asked if  this work would be more effective if it included a better understanding of the demographics of emotional wellbeing across the borough.

The Board noted comments that the Mental Health First Aid training had received very good feedback. The Cabinet Member for Children had been on this training and said that it was a brilliant resource, both the theory and practical. She continued by saying that the resource is generic and not Merton specific, and that it would add to the course if specific support in Merton be referenced. The Director of Public Health replied that providers must meet quality standards but she is commissioning further training, with CCG, and this will be an opportunity to include more specific Merton resource materials and signposting.

The Board noted that the Bereavement Co-coordinator will work closely with the police and emergency services and connect people to local and universal support services. .

The Board noted a comment that a common reason for sickness absence in Merton Council is  musculoskeletal related and that it might be helpful to make greater note of the links between this and mental health.

The Board noted the next step was for the report on Workplace Health across Merton to come to the Board in June. Members were directed to the on line training available on suicide prevention at www.thriveLDN.co.uk/zerosuicideLDN

RESOLVED:

A.   HWBB to agree to further develop the relationship with Thrive London to explore opportunities for further engagement, promote anti-stigma campaigns and seek opportunities for meaningful activity that complements local work.

B.   HWBB members to agree to participate in the re-fresh of the Suicide Prevention action plan and promote evidence-based resources and training to residents and their staff.

C.   HWBB to discuss their experiences of workplace health programmes and the approach to supporting the mental health and wellbeing of their staff, to inform the approach to healthy workplaces in Merton.

D.   HWBB to note the holistic pilot programme taking place in East Merton around Health and Work.

The Director of Public Health presented her report on the Merton Story 2019/20 available at

https://www.merton.gov.uk/healthy-living/publichealth/jsna/the-merton-story

with related information on the JSNA Summary, Ward Profiles and Health Needs Assessments

She asked Board members to comment on this current version and also to suggest future additions to the Merton Story.

Board Members made comments about the Merton Story including:

• It is incredibly useful as it shows the differences in health outcomes between the East and West of the borough.
• That social capital should be added to assets in the current Merton Story and developed further in the future in line with the focus of Merton Community Plan.
• That footnotes be added to reference ‘key messages’ in the current Merton Story.
• A discussion of how assets can be better represented and demonstrably linked to identified needs in the future. 
• A suggestion that it would be helpful if key messages could include some measure of progress or trends or include a benchmark in the future.

The Director of Public Health thanked the Board for their feedback and explained that the Merton Story is a snapshot and that she would work to address all these points. She said that she would like to develop greater community voice in the Merton Story and plans to work with collaboratively with Healthwatch and MVCS to take this forward.

The Chair of Merton CCG raised opportunities with population health management data from multiple sources that can be sorted and analysed in different ways across SW London.

The Managing Director of Merton and Wandsworth CCG explained that the Merton Story and JSNA are key inputs into the commissioning process and that providers use the JSNA to inform their business planning so the data needs to be at the correct level to be usable for commissioning purposes.

The Director of Public Health explained that the important element was ‘intelligent questioning’ so that data gathering was worthwhile. Data needs to be triangulated to produce useful local information

The Chair thanked officers for a comprehensive piece of work, that we should be more mindful of throughout the year.

RESOLVED

A.   To approve the refreshed Merton Story 2019/20, and note its Key Messages, as part of the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment.

B.   To actively use the Merton Story as a tool to disseminate the key messages relating to the health and wellbeing of our local population, to inform strategic commissioning and partnership working

C.   To consider and comment on proposed direction of travel for Merton Story 2020/21

The Director of Public Health presented her report on the Merton Joint Sexual Health Strategy and implementation plan, she reminded the Board that comments  they had made on the draft version plan had been included.

Asked about access to long acting contraceptive, the Director of Public Health replied that she knew there was an issue and it was being reviewed across South West London.

RESOLVED:

That the Health and Wellbeing Board members:

A.   approve and endorse the final borough wide sexual health strategy and implementation plan;

B.   note the work completed in response to their earlier comments on the draft strategy.

James Blythe, CEO of Merton and Wandsworth CCG informed the Board that the six South West London CCGs would merge into a single organisation on 1 April 2020.

He continued that there were three areas to be considered prior to the merger:

1. Staff at CCG – a restructure of staffing is taking place including Merton and Wandsworth. A formal staff consultation will be published this week, with the majority of staff slotting into the functions retained locally. There will be some consolidation across South West London in the corporate and back office teams.
2. Governance – Merton Health and Care Together will be used as much as much as possible as the place based committee in common. Partnership will be integrated into the new constitution of the CCG. ,
3. There will be a single CCG Board for South West London, with Borough Committees each having a  Clinical Chair. Dr Andrew Murray will be the South West London Chair, and so in Merton we will be appointing a new Borough Committee Chair shortly.