Health and Wellbeing Strategy

Health and Wellbeing boards were established under the Health and Social Care Act 2012 to act as a forum in which key leaders from the local health and care system could work together to improve the health and wellbeing of their local population. They became fully operational on 1 April 2013 in all 152 local authorities with adult social care and public heath responsibilities.  They have a statutory duty, with clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), to produce a joint strategic needs assessment and a joint health and wellbeing strategy for their local population. The current members of the Portsmouth Health & Wellbeing Board include:

• Portsmouth City Council (including elected members and officers including the Director of Public Health)
• Portsmouth Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) – Portsmouth Clinical Commissioning Group is responsible for commissioning (or buying) a wide range of NHS services for people who live and work in the city of Portsmouth. Portsmouth CCG covers the whole city area, including Southsea and our boundaries are the same as Portsmouth City Council. ‘GP practices (or Doctor’s surgeries) are part of our services and we have 20 across the city. For more details, please contact the Portsmouth CCG on (023) 9289 9500, at www.portsmouthccg.nhs.uk or at pccg.enquiries@nhs.net
• Healthwatch Portsmouth
• Solent NHS Trust
• Age UK Portsmouth (on behalf of community & voluntary sector organisations)

A Health and Wellbeing strategy identifies priorities for health and wellbeing for local populations and the approaches that will be taken to bring about improvements in these areas.  It doesn’t include all the actions needing to be carried out but instead highlights the key areas for the city to concentrate on. Work done by organisations supporting health and wellbeing in local areas should be informed by and have regard to the Health and Wellbeing Strategy.  Portsmouth’s previous strategy ran from 2014-17, so we now need to refresh this to focus on the next few years.

In developing a draft strategy for 2018-2021, the Health and Wellbeing Board have taken in to account:

• Evidence of what is happening around health and wellbeing outcomes in Portsmouth
• An assessment of our progress against the previous strategy
• Latest relevant national guidance, strategies and plans
• Insight from local residents and communities.

The strategy will be an important document for health and care services in Portsmouth, as it will inform commissioning decisions (ie: what the city council and CCG will pay for) and also influence decisions that are taken across wider city services, including education, development, housing, employment and community safety.

For the period 2018-2021, the priorities that have been identified are:

• Supporting physical good health, focusing on reducing the harms from tobacco and physical inactivity
• Supporting social, emotional and mental health, focusing on reducing the harms from alcohol and other substance misuse, reducing the causes of isolation and exclusion, and promoting positive mental wellbeing
• Making improvements for marginalised groups fastest, including people with complex needs, in the armed forces community, with special educational needs or disabilities, and looked after children and care leavers
• Improving access to health and social care support in the community.

We want to know whether:

• we have identified the right priorities and challenges?
• there are opportunities for the Health and Wellbeing Board to better support work on these priorities and bring about change?
• there are examples of successful initiatives already happening that we should be building on?
• we can measure if we are making a change for the better?

The full draft document is published below, along  with an electronic survey where you can give your thoughts and opinions. The survey is now closed.

We know that not everyone is happy using electronic surveys.  If you don’t want to fill this in, then you can send your thoughts in writing to HWB Consultation, 3^rd Floor, Civic Offices, Guildhall Square, Portsmouth, PO1 2AL by 30^th January.  If, instead, you would like to send your comments to us via Healthwatch Portsmouth, the independent champion for health and care services in the city, for them to collate and send to us as part of their own response to the consultation, please send your comments to them via:

Email: info@healthwatchportsmouth.co.uk or

Post: Healthwatch Portsmouth, c/o Learning Links, Unit 3, St Georges Business Centre, St Georges Square, Portsmouth PO1 3EY.

We must receive your comments by 23^rd January 2018.

After the 30^th January, we will bring together all the results and consider what they mean for the draft strategy.  Where we need to make changes to reflect consultation responses, we will do so.  The final draft document will be presented to the Health and Wellbeing Board meeting in public on 21^st February 2018 at 10.00am at the Civic offices, with the draft strategy available on the city council’s website before the meeting.  Where agreed, the Board will then recommend that this is adopted by the city council and the clinical commissioning group.

Click on the link to complete the survey.