Issue - meetings

Interviews with:

·  Dr Bob Bowes, Chairman of the West Kent Health and Wellbeing Board, and;

·  Alison Broom, Chief Executive of Maidstone Borough Council and Board member of the West Kent Health and Wellbeing Board.

The Chairman welcomed Dr Bob Bowes, Chairman of the West Kent Health and Wellbeing Board (WKHWB) and Dr Jones, GP from Maidstone and member of the WKHWB and thanked them for attending.

Dr Bowes delivered his presentation explaining it was focused on the issues faced by the HWB.  He began by explaining where the WKHWB sat in the structure.

The Kent HWB (KHWB) was established as a result of the Health and Social Care Act 2012. However, it was explained the structure of HWBs best suited a unitary authority system and not a county the size of Kent with a mixture of unitary, district and borough councils.  As a result KHWB created local HWBs in Kent as sub-committees co-terminus with the local Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG).  This allowed for local say and local steer on strategy at CCG level.

Dr Bowes went on to explain:

·  The Children’s Health and Wellbeing group was yet to be formed, but would provide reports to WKHWB;

·  No reports, as yet, had been received from local authorities with a health and wellbeing remit. This was something that needed to be done to ensure there was alignment with the services provided;

·  The WKHWB had no budget, no authority and no staff to help with administration etc.

·  The major influence in the delivery of services sat with the providers of the service because this was what mattered to the public.  Dr Bowes suggested, as resources were so scarce, strategic bodies such as the CCGs and HWBs, should have a higher public profile and public awareness of what they do.

·  The WKHWB had difficulties in receiving a population needs assessment data set that was credible, comprehensive and made sense of the needs of the local community.

Questions raised by Dr Bowes presentation included:

·  How much influence should providers have on the services they delivered?

·  Are providers delivering on WKHWB’s strategy?

·  How aligned were the providers and local authorities strategies with the WKHWB’s strategy?

·  How did the WKHWB focus it’s instructions to the providers given the enormity of the needs?

Dr Bowes’ outlined the responsibilities of the WKHWB.  These included:

·  Bringing democratic legitimacy to the commissioning of health and social care.  It was explained that having elected members sitting on the WKHWB was extremely powerful and brought a sense of public ownership and accountability;

·  Preventing ill health by promoting good health to reduce inequalities.  This had the lowest spend but resulted in the highest savings. However, preserving services meant continuous fire fighting. Better engagement and joining up with district and borough councils, who provided preventative services, was needed; 

·  Integrating health and social care commissioning, ensuring commissioners achieved integrated delivery.  Also that, commissioners’ strategies were aligned with the Kent County Council (KCC) Health and Wellbeing Strategy. This was an important role and one only the WKHWB could carry out.

The last slide of Dr Bowes’ presentation showed a graph of the causes of death by Maidstone Ward.  The graph showed Park Wood was in the top quintile for deaths through  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8