The Board received an update under Chairman’s Announcements at its previous meeting on 22 May and agreed to receive a further update inclusive of future consultation plans.
Maggie Rae, Corporate Director, will present the update.
Minutes:
The Board at its previous meeting in May agreed that the draft Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy would be brought back to the next meeting and the Board updated accordingly.
Maggie Rae, Corporate Director Wiltshire Council, provided an update on the draft strategy which included that Karen Spence from Wiltshire Council Public Health was working closely with colleagues at the CCG regarding its development.
The resulting strategy would emphasise the quality of life for individuals, their families and carers and parity of esteem providing equal focus on mental and physical health, noting that evidence suggested that physical health issues of those with mental health problems were often not dealt with appropriately and resulted in a lower life expectancy as a result.
Statistics highlighted included:
· 1 in 4 individuals would experience mental health problems in their lifetime.
· 1 in 10 new mothers expected to experience post natal depression.
· Mental ill health equated to approximately 23% of health issues in UK.
· 11% of the NHS budget was spent on mental health (almost double that spent on cancer).
The strategy was required to provide better outcomes for people and the aim for Wiltshire was to create environments and communities that keep people well across their lifetime, achieving and sustaining good mental health and wellbeing for all.
Within the local area, the Quality Outcome Framework 2010/11 mental health register had just over 3k people in Wiltshire, with suicide figures reported as higher in the South West than the national average.
The draft strategy was being prepared using stakeholder feedback together with evidence provided via the Joint Strategic Assessment (JSA) and would emphasise the importance to service users.
Six main areas of activity had been identified to achieve the strategy
· Prevention and early intervention (including perinatal mental health)
· Promoting emotional wellbeing and tackling stigma and discrimination
· Personalised recovery based services with a wellbeing perspective
· Effective and efficient use of resources to ensure value for money
· Closer collaboration with service users, families and carers in the development of services
· Joint working with a wider group of statutory services
The 3 month consultation period was expecting to commence following approval from executive bodies to proceed in September which would include further engagement with stakeholders and service users.
The need to include a link to parenting and the need to ensure the message that bad parenting often resulted in a negative impact on children’s emotional wellbeing and appropriate sign posting for all groups was highlighted as well as further reference required on crisis work. The work taking place with the police authority was highlighted as an example of positive joined up work being undertaken.
It was confirmed that the draft strategy had been presented to the CCG Board in July to seek approval to proceed to consultation. and had been discussed in public with a lot of positive feedback received. This included the need for an implementation plan which was expected to be prepared following consultation.
Acknowledging the need for appropriate stakeholder involvement, Brian Warwick, the attending Older People’s Champion, would be contacted after the meeting to seek details on suggested stakeholders that may not already been involved.
Recognition was also given on the importance of developing a strong strategy but that specific targeted work (such as that taking place between the Bath RUH and AWP on maternity care) would continue in the interim.
To ensure the Strategy remained a focus for the Board, an update would be provided in September with a more detailed report and draft implementation plan inclusive of existing work presented in November 2014. Noting that a Children’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy was already in place, future reporting should also highlight how the two strategies linked together.