Health and Wellbeing Board	19 November 2025
Report of the Chair of the York Health and Wellbeing Board

Chair’s report and updates

Summary

1. This paper is designed to summarise key issues and progress which has happened in between meetings of the Health and Wellbeing Board (HWBB), giving Board members a concise update on a broad range of relevant topics which would otherwise entail separate papers.

Key Updates for the Board

Partnership Updates

2. The Ageing Well Partnership are reviewing their Terms of Reference and refreshing their membership, with the new chair being confirmed as Anne Howgate (Assistant Director – Access, Prevention and Improvement in Adult Social Care). The last meeting focused on social isolation with a presentation from Professor Martin Webber from the University of York. The University have been successful in being awarded research grant funding to codesign a social frailty tool and will collaborate with system partners on the development of this.

3. The Partnership also received a report on the progress against the action points of the Preventing Well section of the Dementia Strategy. The next theme will be Supporting Well, produced by Dementia Forward.

4. The Partnership also received updates regarding progress in the Getting Out And About domain of the Age Friendly York initiative. Two recent initiatives have been launched:

ØFor Your Convenience – over 50 businesses offering a seat or toilet without being a paying customer

ØAccessible Housing checklist – a tool to enable people to ensure their property is suitable for their life course or to assess a property they are considering moving to or a method to check if a housing development has taken this into consideration within their property design

5. The Partnership also approved the proposal to introduce:

ØAge Friendly Employer Pledge – encouraging local businesses to take age related employment into consideration in the way the recruit and support staff.

6. Better Care Fund (BCF): The BCF Performance and Delivery Group continues to meet regularly, aligning with the quarterly reporting schedule. The group has a renewed set of objectives and outcomes which promote openness and transparency.

7. Following the success of the first BCF Winter Workshop which took place last year, we are planning this year's session which will see partners coming together to celebrate the fantastic work of the BCF.

8. The workshop is a great opportunity to hear examples of real-world delivery from the schemes and to see how often there are interdependencies. It also provides partners with the chance to get to know each other, network and make some helpful links, strengthening partnership working and collaboration.

9.  A person behind every statistic was one of the standout statements that many people took away from the last session we will be building on this and breaking down the detail around data and intelligence and we can use this to inform BCF planning.

10.  There has been a focus on how we are stronger together and how we all acknowledge that there has been a real shift towards integration across all partners and crucially, beginning to cross organisational boundaries. There are things that we can do together that we cannot do alone and working together and seeing ourselves as 'one' will help create the resilience and strength, fundamentally improving how we work and crucially, improving the lives and experiences of the people accessing these services.

National and Local Updates

11.Infant Feeding: The protection, promotion and support for breastfeeding are a vitally important public health priority as breastfeeding promotes health, prevents disease, and provides numerous benefits for both mother and baby. There is overwhelming evidence that breastfeeding saves lives and protects the health of babies and mothers both in the short and long term.

12. As with many aspects of public health, inequalities in maternal and infant outcomes exist, with poorer outcomes experienced by certain groups of women and their babies. We know that these risk factors can be reduced through promotion of breastfeeding initiation and support for breastfeeding duration.

13. Breastfeeding is viewed by many as difficult to achieve and often unnecessary because formula milk is seen as a close second best. This is largely due to the strong commercial influences from formula milk companies, which use marketing strategies to promote formula milk as equal to breast milk.

14. The Council Plan and Joint Local Health and Wellbeing strategy sets out the vision for York’s children to have the best possible start in life, which we know can be achieved through good infant feeding practices, especially breastfeeding.  Focusing on nutrition and relationship building in the first 1001 days can also contribute significantly towards progress against the six big ambitions in the Health and Wellbeing strategy.

15. York’s Breastfeeding and Infant Feeding Delivery Plan sets out how we will protect, promote, support and normalise breastfeeding across York, improving our existing services and in turn supporting women to initiate breastfeeding and continue breastfeeding as well as targeting interventions in areas of low uptake. One of the key actions within this plan is to become UNICEF Baby Friendly Initiative (BFI) accredited.

16. BFI is an evidence based, staged accreditation programme that will support CYC to improve breastfeeding and infant feeding by setting standards for sustainable improvement, providing training for professionals to give consistent information and personalised support to families; and gaining feedback from families about their experiences of care. This programme of work also helps families in building close parent-infant relationships and supports with good mental health for both parent and baby.

17. We have just submitted our Certificate of Commitment for our UNICEF Baby Friendly Accreditation (BFI). This is a significant first step towards our formal pledge to work towards meetings BFI standards. This shows our commitment to best practice around infant feeding and supportive parent and infant relationships.

18.SEND Update: The SEND Inclusion and Belonging Strategy, 2025-2030 was approved by the Council’s Executive at their meeting on 7th October. The strategy aligns with the All Age Autism and ADHD strategy and provides an ambitious framework for the way that the local SEND partnership will work together to support the welfare and wellbeing of children and young people with SEND. The strategy and its accompanying delivery plan will be monitored by the SEND and Alternative Provision Partnership Board and progress will also be shared with the Health and Wellbeing Board through the Chair’s updates.

19. On 21st October the culture of Inclusion and Belonging was the focus of a citywide conference for schools. All the city’s schools and academy trusts were represented at the conference which has been used to launch the city’s focus on belonging and mattering in education as the main priority for 2026. The conference was supported by a range of presentations from national and local speakers and culminated in schools identifying three pledges to promote inclusion and belonging. These pledges are being collated and will be used to develop a city toolkit to support the work on belonging which will be launched with schools in January 2026.

20.Winter planning: On October 31^st, a Seasonal Health Forum was held at West Offices gathering a wide range of partners across York and North Yorkshire to discuss our local response to, for example, warm homes, vaccination, response to extreme cold and other topics. Important local resources include Warm Places in York, Warm Homes Local Grant, Food banks and links to Mental health services.

21. At the time of writing, RSV infections are decreasing, along with COVID-19 numbers. The number of people testing positive for flu, although still within baseline, is rising around 4 weeks earlier than normal.

22. NHS resources on vaccinations and winter health, including eligibility for vaccination and booking details, can be found here

23.Pharmacy changes: The HWB has been notified that the Pharmacy at 101-103 Green Lane, Acomb is relocating to Cornlands Road, Acomb, York, YO24 3WX, following the closure of the pharmacy on this site, with a total of 49 hours opening (Mon-Fri: 8:30-13:00; 13:30-18:00 & Sat: 9:00-13:00).

Author:	Responsible for the report:
Compiled by Tracy Wallis Health and Wellbeing Partnerships Co-ordinator	Cllr Lucy Steels-Walshaw Executive Member for Health, Wellbeing and Adult Social Care
	Report Approved	√	Date	06.11.25

Wards Affected:	All	√
For further information please contact the author of the report