Agenda item

This report provides an update to the Health and Wellbeing Board regarding the work of the York Health and Care Partnership, progress to date and next steps.

The Director of Public Health presented the report and the Deputy Director of Nursing – York presented an update on the progress of the Mental Health Hub.

The following points were discussed:

·        Regarding speech and language professionals – the board asked about increasing access referrals as there was still a waiting list. The Corporate Director Children’s and Education responded that there are two parts of the Early Talk For York scheme, the first is identifying the issue and passing on to specialists, the second is training people within the workforce to respond to it. So the first part was probably increasing waits by identifying more cases. He noted that we were not going to see a number of specialists come to the city who don’t exist nationally.

·        Regarding winter pressures the Joint Chair of York Health and Care Collaborative expressed concern that funds were usually committed in December and primary care were asked to step up by which time they could not do so quickly enough. It was suggested this be made opt-out rather than opt-in to make more economic use of funds. The Director of Public Health responded to this by noting that an operational group had been set up early by his predecessor last year and public messaging re vaccination did get out there at an earlier point, the problematic part was waiting for NHS England to announce funding. He agreed with primary care’s suggestion that discussions with the ICB about the best spending needed to happen earlier in the year.

·        Regarding Funding - the Manager of Healthwatch York agreed that currently things were being done locally at risk when it was generally understood that the money would be coming. She proposed writing a wish list of what is required, whether or not the money had come at that point. The Chair of York CVS stated that the same was applicable to the voluntary and community sector. He stated the sector was keen to help with winter pressures but significant operational challenges were presented where money was awarded at such short notice; additionally if a contract has been awarded but the outcome of a review was not received until the contract had ended, voluntary staff have left due to having had to be put on notice of redundancy.

·        Regarding Mental Health Hubs – the board advised that they were pleased to see an early intervention and prevention approach discussed in the report as it saved both money and time later. The board said it would appreciate advice on where the Mental Health hubs would be and how people can get to them. The Director of Operations and Transformation, TEWV advised that the Mental Health Hub was on track to relaunch at Clarence Street in April 2024 and –

o   Posts had now been fully recruited to.

o   There was an aim for a sustainable model going forward to establish three hubs across York.

o   Referrals would be diverted from primary care and specialist services.

o   Crisis line/crisis team was the appropriate direction to best address the needs of the community.

o   There was currently an overall 4-hour response time.

o    There was an 0800 number on the new telephone system and a new provider will start on 3 April to screen calls.

o   The average wait time was 30 mins and there had been 388 callers in last week, 70% of which were answered before the call was abandoned.

On this last point, the Chair expressed some concern that 30% of calls to the crisis line had still ‘hung up’ in the past week and therefore those people may end up in Accident and Emergency. She stressed that if there was anything that partners can contribute then please raise this as we wish to address this issue. The Director of Operations and Transformation, TEWV stressed for clarity that 94% calls were answered by a person and it was just the transfer through that the 70% figure comes from, and he can observe from statistics that many of these people call back.

Resolved: That the Board note the report of the YHCP.

Reason: So that the Board were kept up to date on the work of the YHCP, progress to date and next steps.