Agenda item

Sharing a Healthwatch York report focused on women’s health. The report brings together women’s experiences when navigating health and care.

The item was introduced by the Manager of York Healthwatch, discussing the experiences of women in York with health services. She noted that the overwhelming message of the report was that the women who responded just wished to be listened to.

The two Women’s Health items (the Healthwatch York Report and the Public Health Team Report) were both discussed together.

The Chair noted that the inaction, lack of change and lack of data highlighted by both reports was disheartening.

The Director of Public Health responded that every effort was made to gather information – it was simply a case of gender being collected separately when identifying an individual and not as part of the health statistics, which were not specifically disaggregated by gender at a national level.

He suggested that wherever possible for internal use, partner organisations might make efforts going forward to disaggregate gender and the broad if not detailed categories of ethnicity outlined by the Office of National Statistics, in order that this not be an issue at a local level.

The Chief Executive, York CVS asked where the actions following these reports would sit, since clearly they were not all for one agency and a lot of issues and recommendations had been highlighted. She asked if there would be an action plan linked to this to track progress.

The Director of Public Health invited the Interim York Place Director to speak about the Women’s Health Hub, asking whether the ICB would be tying that into that into a broader women's health strategy (and if not perhaps the board partners may wish to discuss one). The Interim York Place Director stated that while he couldn’t answer on this issue specifically there was a focus on this issue across the ICB.

He agreed that there was a statutory obligation here for the ICB but queried how best to bring examples raised in the reports into the broader strategy, suggesting that the York Health and Care Partnership could specifically look at these.

The Director of Public Health assured that many actions were being picked up through other partnerships; he stated that some of the work around violence against women and girls within this strategy would be picked up through the community safety partnership and domestic abuse also had its own dedicated partnership, and before drawing up an action plan partners should consider these partnerships.

The Chief Executive, York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust confirmed that with Healthwatch reports, there was a process that partner organisations went through to consider the recommendations, as such this could be dealt with by family health.

He suggested that a Joint Strategic Needs Assessment was needed to properly reflect the Health Needs Assessment and the wider needs of women's health and be the driver for future strategies for the Health and Wellbeing Board, Place and ICB.

The Director of Public Health responded that this was a good challenge since the JSNA website probably did not currently disaggregate its data (as had earlier been encouraged) and this would be one action to take away in terms of the way data was presented there. He said that the ICB and the Council were well placed to utilise local data and intelligence to really know the population, even when national data didn’t provide this option.

Councillor Webb noted the first recommendation on page 64 of the report, and discussed one case wherein there was a five-day delay for the team around baby to remove a tongue tie.

The Manager, York Healthwatch confirmed that York has had a difficult history with mother and baby units and this also needs pressing at a national level. It was important for mothers to be catered for in the right place, and the nearest dedicated units to York were in Leeds and Morpeth and York residents relatives had found it difficult to visit them in Morpeth, let alone the next closest units in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.

She advised that Healthwatch report did not contain a large number of recommendations, because it was more focused on having a conversation about the content, but they had specifically added these ones because they had heard time and time again about the impact on women, their mental health and well-being, ability to feed a baby, better sleep for everyone in that household and feeling more able to cope with the joys of new parenting.

She also stated that the York Health and Care Collaborative (YHCC) had held discussions about neighbourhood health and women utilising GP access more than the general population around mental health and pain, and although Healthwatch hadn't made many recommendations about these long-term conditions she hoped that through the YHCC this could be further examined.

The board thereby

Resolved:   i. To note and discuss the report

ii. To consider the challenges system partners face to address poor health outcomes for women in the city, using the six key priorities outlined in the report as its focus.

Reason:     To keep up to date with the work of Healthwatch York and be aware of what members of the public are telling us.