Agenda item

To provide organisations of the Health and Wellbeing Board with an evidence-based approach to improving workforce health and wellbeing across agencies collectively.

The Board received a paper on a Public Health Workforce Campaign, presented by Kate Blackburn (Director of Public Health). The presentation covered the following matters:

• It was acknowledged that the role of the Health and Wellbeing Board is to bring together the political, clinical and professional leaders across the healthcare system to reduce health inequalities and improve the health of the wider population.
• The majority of the collective of staff live within the boundaries of Wiltshire, therefore presenting an opportunity to improve staff health as a starting point, before expanding to improve the health of the wider population.
• The paper provides all organisations within the Health and Wellbeing Board an evidence-based approach to improving workforce health collectively. It is known that good health and wellbeing is essential for successful and sustainable work places.
• Based on the population data of Wiltshire, risk factors commonly relate to areas such as smoking, drinking and cancer; however it is acknowledged that if there isn’t good mental health, physical interventions will not succeed. The first stage has therefore been recognised as improving health and wellbeing.
• It was acknowledged that though individual workplaces will have policies, more work needs to be done with the organisations of the Health and Wellbeing Board coming together.
• It was outlined that Step 1 focuses on emotional wellbeing and resilience, with Step 2 then focusing on lifestyle factors and interventions. There are a range of interventions and indicators that can be used to track progress, ultimately seeing how this links to the wider work and principles of the ICS and ICA.
• As one of the key BSW ICS tools, the Public Health team and Kevin McNamara are producing training in relation to making every contact count.

In addition, the Board noted comments on the following matters:

• The Chairman noted that though apologies had been received on behalf of Kevin McNamara; Kevin had stated that having read the paper the Great Western Hospital can commit to recommendations 1-3. Additionally, the Great Western Hospital has a Board endorsed Healthy and Wellbeing Strategy, which was agreed earlier in the year.

• Kier Pritchard endorsed and signed up to each recommendation from the Wiltshire Police perspective. It was stressed that for the Police, mental health and wellbeing is critical, with the Police constantly making use of staff surveys to evaluate workforce. Having seen increases in anxiety in the past 12 months, Wiltshire Police have signed up to a national Blue Light Together programme to help to preserve and increase mental health and wellbeing.
• Stephen Ladyman stated that Wiltshire Health and Care were happy to sign up to the recommendations, however noted that there is a need to make sure reporting is light touch. Kate Blackburn agreed that the reporting should be light and meaningful, whilst allowing the collective effort to be greater than an individually.
• Councillor Richard Clewer added that there is benefit to monitoring and reporting back, with reporting critical to handling any issues the Health and Wellbeing Board is looking to address. Councillor Clewer agreed that this should be done in a targeted way rather than onerous way, that gives a good set of data for granularity.
• Nicola Hazle added that AWP would be happy to commit to recommendations 1-3 and would feedback recommendation 4 to the organisation. Nicola updated that a number of pieces of work had been completed by AWP in relation to Health and Wellbeing including work on the AWP health and wellbeing strategy, production by leads of a trauma informed compassionate leadership guide and a trust-wide health and wellbeing group. Additionally, future wellbeing webinars and training sessions have been planned.
• Alison Ryan agreed that the Royal United Hospital would sign up to all of the recommendations, also citing that the RUH has a raft of support measures in place to support staff. Additionally, research is being conducted at Bath University to evaluate mental state and how to make improvements to it. Alison stressed that what makes the collective strong is having enough staff to do the job as otherwise staff are overstressed and overstretched. There is also an awareness of health inequalities in Bath, which needs to be understood.

• Lucy Townsend accepted the recommendations from a Wiltshire Council perspective, noting that everything is in place for recommendations 1 and 2 for the Public Health team to deliver next year.
• Gillian Leake noted that as a small organisation, Healthwatch would sign up to these recommendations; noting that though small organisations don’t have a large amount of resources, they offer line management, which didn’t seem to have been mentioned in this report. It was clarified that in the Local Authority line management is critical and key, which is most likely the reason why it wasn’t referenced.
• The Chairman stated that the BSW CCG would be happy to sign up to recommendations 1-3 and would actively encourage recommendation 4.
• It was agreed that this item would be added to a future agenda in order to monitor progress being made.

Decision – The Wiltshire Health and Wellbeing Board accepted the following recommended proposals:

i) Each organisation agrees to collectively enable a healthy workforce through improved wellbeing and increased resilience.

ii) Each organisation to implement a suitable and targeted intervention that addresses health and wellbeing in their workforce.

iii) Each organisation to monitor and report back on progress in 12 months’ time.

iv) Each organisation, and the Health and Wellbeing Board itself, to sign up to the Prevention Concordat for Better Mental Health, a shared commitment by signatories to work together to prevent mental health problems and promote good mental health.

It was also  agreed that in order to progress this agenda further, organisational leads on workforce wellbeing would be collated, performance indicators would be agreed at a future meeting and the Integrated Care Alliance would support organisations with the development of action on this agenda.