Agenda item

a.    People – Mental Well-being (Sian Williams)

b.    Community – Community Empowerment (Judith Greenhalgh)

c.    Place – Environment Resilience (Teresa Owen)

 

10:10am – 11:00am

 

Nicola Kneale (DCC) informed the Board that a mapping exercise had been undertaken to ensure the themes from the original 6 priorities were not missing or omitted from the revised 3 priorities.  The mapping results could be found in item 5 of the reports pack, where the majority of themes had been included.

 

a)    People – Mental Well-being

 

A well-attended and positively received workshop was held in Llanrwst at the end of November. A report would be produced from the workshop for circulation in January.

 

The workshop indicated there was already lots of work ongoing in this area to map the current services and initiatives for mental well-being and to identify any duplication or gaps. It was suggested that the Local Implementation Teams could potentially be utilised to steer or deliver the action plans for this priority. 

 

The Board noted that the demand for mental health care in the region was increasing rapidly, and more resources were required at a time of increasing financial austerity for local authorities.

 

The Board agreed to scrutinise the report when it was published in January in order to prioritise work to address the areas that could make the largest impact.

 

 

 

b)   Community – Community Empowerment

 

The Board was guided to the opportunities section of the social prescribing report (item 5b) – which was developed following conversations between Nina Ruddle (Glyndwr University), Dr Glynne Roberts (Public Health Wales), Mefty Haider (NRW) and Nicola Kneale (DCC).

 

The Board focused on where the PSB could add value in this area, as there was a lot of work already happening with social prescribing in North Wales.  A discussion ensued, where –

 

• The Board felt there was potential for the PSB to explore social prescribing in terms of weight management (opportunity B).
• Members agreed it would be useful to pursue opportunity C (developing spatial health data at LSOA level).  This would link in with the well-being assessment and also fit with place planning.  The Board discussed the possibility of focusing on deprived areas initially (potentially both a rural and coastal community across both counties).
• Social prescribing should be viewed as an approach and used to support all 3 priorities rather than an action.

 

Debbie Neale (DVSC) informed the Board that DVSC would lead on the Dementia element of the priority as they have received Intermediate Care Funding (ICF) to raise awareness and deliver dementia training across Conwy and Denbighshire.  The Board welcomed the update and requested a report be tabled at a future meeting.

 

Conwy CBC confirmed they were in the early stages of becoming a dementia friendly organisation.

 

c)    Place – Environmental Resilience

 

An update on this priority was provided as follows –

 

•      Working groups have been established to progress work with environment officers from across PSB partners.

•      There would be two versions for the green pledges, one for communities and businesses and another for individuals.   

•      A guide would be developed to support communities to meet the pledge, which would contain information on the availability of further resources and potential funding.

•      For the common environmental policy work, information was currently being gathered on specific aspects (e.g. waste, flooding, biodiversity, carbon and energy etc). This information would be used to develop a framework all partners could work towards at their own pace.

•      Recognised that partnership working needed to be developed further, and proposing to establish virtual networks for the different environmental aspects.

 

Sian Williams (NRW) informed the Board that Natural Resources Wales were planning to examine the themes from each PSB in terms of the environment and determine where they could add support.  It was suggested that a regional approach could be taken to deliver this work.

 

This approach would accord with the climate change proposal under item 6. The Board was informed that this proposal has originated from Wrexham’s PSB and suggested taking a regional approach to tackling climate change to provide greater momentum, as current local approaches were not working. 

 

The Board was informed of how both Anglesey Council and Gwynedd County Council were planning to tackle global warming especially in respect of coastal issues. The Board agreed that regional work was essential to mitigate the regional impact of climate change.

 

A meeting with the North Wales PSB Chairs and key officers was being arranged to discuss the climate change proposal further.   

 

The priority leads (i.e. those leading on the priorities) discussed the value of leading on work that was not within their usual area. However, the Board needed to consider who should take the lead on the priorities in the longer term.

 

RESOLVED – That

 

      i.                The Board members scrutinise the mental well-being workshop report after its publication in January 2019; and

    ii.                The Community Empowerment priority lead officers to liaise with health colleagues to discuss the LSOA level data.