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Agenda item

Cabinet Member Update

To receive an update on current and forthcoming issues within the portfolio of the Cabinet Member for Family Services and Public Health.

Minutes:

4.1      Councillor Heather Acton (Cabinet Member for Family Services and Public Health), provided a briefing on key issues within her portfolio. The Committee also heard from Senel Arkut (Head of Health Partnerships and Development), Melissa Caslake (Bi-Borough Executive Director of Childrens Services), Sarah Newman (Director of Family Services), Annabel Saunders (Assistant Director for Commissioning and Innovation) and James Benson (Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust).

 

4.2      Councillor Acton provided an update on the following additional items of interest:

 

·           Shisha – She had recently attended a meeting convened by the MP for Birmingham Ladywood to explore the potential to incorporate the smoking of shisha into the Licensing Act 2003. It was proposed to invite all local authorities who had attended this meeting to the next Westminster Shisha assembly to raise awareness of the dangers of smoking shisha.

 

·           Dementia and Mental Health – The Cabinet was due to receive a training session on dementia which would also be open to all members of the Council. If members were unable to attend however a further session would be made available. It was also currently Childrens Mental Health Week and the Director of Public Health would shortly be publishing an annual report titled ‘The Health and Wellbeing of Young People in Kensington & Chelsea and Westminster’. This would be circulated to the Committee electronically.

 

·           Speech and Language Therapy – Negotiations were still ongoing with the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) regarding the provision of Early Years Speech and Language Therapy with a particular focus on providing children with more specialist needs assistance at an earlier stage.

 

4.3      Funding - The Committee was interested to learn what implications recent reductions in funding would have for the Dementia Strategy and the Speech and Language Therapy Sessions. It was noted that positive negotiations for both areas were ongoing with a holistic approach being taken to ensure there was adequate cover. Significant work had been undertaken with the CCG to design future specifications for the services with a more evidence-based approach being utilised to target offers of support. As part of this work, the interface between the early years’ service and the school age service was also being assessed in order to improve school transitions for children and young people.

 

4.4      Flu Vaccine - Concern was expressed that levels of uptake for the flu vaccine was slightly down on last year. It was confirmed that there was ongoing work with schools to promote uptake with five of the eleven schools who had not fixed an appointment now having signed up to the programme. Public Health England was also working closely with local GPs to disseminate information. The Health and Wellbeing Board was due to receive a report in March 2019 that would cover barriers to uptake of immunisations and childhood vaccinations and this could be circulated to the Committee.

 

4.5      Serious Youth Violence – The Committee requested an update on the approach taken to tackle youth violence. The Committee was interested to learn that a public health approach had been adopted with an emphasis on empowering communities to help reduce youth violence. No extra funding had been made available for the initiative; however the Serious Youth Violence Officer Task Group met regularly and placed a greater emphasis on collaborative working across Public Health, Council departments, the police and the voluntary and community sectors to adapt to the changing nature of violence.

 

4.6      The Committee also discussed Nursing Homes, Rough Sleepers and the Better Care Fund.

Supporting documents: