Agenda item - Formal Public Involvement

This is the part of the meeting when members of the public can formally ask questions of the Board or present a petition.  These need to be notified to the Board in advance of the meeting.  Ring the Secretary to the Board, Mark Wall on 01273 291006 or send an email to mark.wall@brighton-hove.gov.uk

39.1         The Chair noted that three public questions had been received and invited Mr. McKenna to put his question to the Board.

39.2         Mr. McKenna thanked the Chair and asked the following question:

“With Neighbourhood Hubs being discussed by the City Council and the new Council leadership wanting to find new cost effective and community involving ways to tackling issues such as health inequalities, does the Health and Wellbeing Board agree  that  working with grassroots organisations such as DueEast Neighbourhood Council could provide innovative ways to look to join up health and adult social care services from the patients’ street level perspective at a local level with local people involved at their heart ?”

39.3         The Chair replied:  “Brighton & Hove City Council are committed to building on our approach to community development to recognise that it is the capacities of local people and their community and voluntary activity builds powerful communities.

The Communities, Equality and Third Sector Team and Public Health jointly commission a range of neighbourhood and equalities based community development support across the city including the areas covered by Due East Neighbourhood Council - Whitehawk, Bristol Estate and Manor Farm. In this area the Community Development support is commission to Serendipity Enterprise Solutions

The Community Development is specially commissioned to provide support to communities to work with public services, to find solutions to local issues and to develop their capacity to support themselves. This includes the delivery of a small grants approach to community health initiatives and is open to the provision of flexible support for small pockets of the city.

At a time with reducing public spending and changes to the welfare state we recognise that individuals and communities (particularly those facing most disadvantages) will face additional pressures over the coming years. Subsequently, there is a greater need to increase and strengthen communities and individual well-being and resilience. This includes supporting all communities to be empowered and proactive in the development of community groups, services and activities in the city and increasing social networks and individual skills and knowledge.

I am also happy to provide you with a more detailed response in writing.

39.4         Mr. McKenna then asked the following supplementary question; “Would you like more information on DueEast and its activities and invited members of the Board to attend meetings in the future.”

39.5         The Chair replied, “Thank you for the offer and yes he would welcome as much information as possible an given sufficient prior warning would endeavour to attend a future session.”

39.6         The Chair then invited Mr. Kirk to come forward and to put his question to the Board;

39.7         Mr. Kirk thanked the Chair and asked the following question;

“At the July meeting of the HWB board a paper and strategy was agreed for the Public Health Commissioning for the Healthy Child Programme 0-19. In the paper was a proposal to 'test the market' for potential providers of this service in November 2015. Can the board ….

1.      Publish the strategy paper, and

2.      Report which providers have expressed an interest in this contract?

            In the minutes of that meeting it was noted that a Transition Board would be established. What exactly are the terms of reference of the Transition Board, and if it has reported, what has it recommended?

39.8         The Chair replied; “Thank you for your question Mr. McKenna.  Following the transfer of the commissioning responsibility for the health visiting service in October 2015 the NHS England Healthy Child Programme Transition Board, set up to ensure the safe commissioning transition of the service, was replaced by a Health Visiting Transformation Group, led by Public Health. The purpose of the group is to inform the model of delivery for the future health visiting service.  This group reports to the Public Health Modernisation Board as part of the wider work for the commissioning of the Healthy Child Programme 0-19 years.  The market testing, which was slightly delayed, is now underway.  The results of the market testing will be available at the end of January and will be reported to the Public Health Modernisation Board and to the March meeting of the Health and Wellbeing Board.  We will be able to say how many organisations have expressed an interest; however it will not be possible to provide the details of any individual provider.

The Terms of Reference for the Health Visiting Transformation Group dated the 14^th October 2015 are available and I will ensure a copy is sent to you.”

39.9         Mr. Kirk then asked the following question; “Are the Council and the Board responsible to the residents of the city as they should be transparent in their decision-making and if people did not want to bid then they would choose not to do so.”

39.10      The Chair asked the Lawyer to the Board to respond.

39.11      The Lawyer to the Board stated that in any bidding process there was an element of commercial sensitivity which had to be respected and could not be shared publicly.  All such matters would be considered by the Board on their merits and it was perfectly usual to have a degree of confidentiality in order to obtain the best deal for residents.

39.12      The Chair then invited Mr. Kapp to come forward and to put his question to the Board;

“My question relates to Item 47 on the agenda, Enhanced Health and Wellbeing GP service update.  Will the third sector be invited to bid for these Locally Commissioned Services, and if so, when will the invitations be issued?”

39.13      The Chair replied; “The new Locally Commissioned Services contract is a contract available only to GP practices working together in a cluster. Clusters of practices are required to develop action plans to outline how they want to deliver services. In the future clusters of GP practices may want to work with, or possibly commission voluntary sector providers to support delivery of particular services but this will be decided by the GP cluster.”

39.14      Mr. Kapp asked the following supplementary question; “Would the Chair confirm that as the start date was not until April 2016 that invitations would be issued nearer the time?”

39.15      Dr. Beesley replied; “All practices cover the whole population and would not spend the whole budget from day one and she expected the GP Clusters would seek to work with groups from all sectors.”

39.16      The Chair noted that there were no further questions and prior to taking the formal items listed in the agenda noted that it was now intended to split the agenda into items for decision, items for discussion and items to note.  In this regard it was hoped that it would make it clearer to those attending the meeting.  He also noted that those items listed as being to note, would not usually be considered but simply taken as read.  The reports would be included with the agenda so that the information was made publicly available.