Tower Hamlets Health and Wellbeing Board - Tuesday 10 February 2026, 5:00pm - Tower Hamlets Council webcasts

Tower Hamlets Health and Wellbeing Board
Tuesday, 10th February 2026 at 5:00pm 

Agenda

Slides

Transcript

Map

Resources

Forums

Speakers

Votes

 

Welcome to our Webcast Player.

The webcast should start automatically for you. 

Webcast cameras are not operated by camerapersons; they are automated and linked to speaker microphone units. The aim is to provide viewers with a reasonable visual and audio record of proceedings of meetings held in public.

Note: If your webcast link appears not to be working, please return to the Webcast Home Page and try again, or use the help email address to contact us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Share this agenda point
  1. Webcast Finished

Good evening, everyone.
Welcome to the Tahemet's Health and Wellbeing Board.
Sorry, the sound.
Okay.
Okay, there's a bit of echo.
Okay, so welcome everyone to the Tahemet's Health and Wellbeing Board.
First of all, before we start, we'll get everyone to introduce ourselves,
and then we'll go to the procedures.
Can we start from this side?
Councillor Burdichella.
Thank you, Chair.
Good evening, everyone.
My name is Councillor Baudrilli Chowdhury,
company member for customer service,
equalities and social inclusion.
Thank you.
Thank you, Chair.
Good evening, everyone.
Councillor Mayim Talukda, Deputy Mayor,
lead member for education, youth and lifelong learning.
Thank you.
Neil Ashman, I'm the hospital chief executive
of Royal London, Chair, THD and vice -chair
of the Health and Wellbeing Board.
I'm Shambhan Ji, Director of Public Health
to Hamlet's Council.
Councillor Sabine Acta, I'm the lead member for health and wellbeing and adult social care and today I will be chairing today's meeting.
Naveed Hamid, Head of Strategy Policy and Improvement for Health and Adult Social Care.
Justina Bridgeman, Democratic Services Officer.
Councillor Amy Lee.
Steve Radde, Corporate Director, Children's Services.
Georgia Chimbani, Corporate Director, Health and Adult Social Care.
I am
the
senior policy
officer in
public health.
I am Dominic
and I manage the
tech and
poverty team.
I am
Katie Taylor,
head of
communities
and social
change at
Toimbi
Hall and I
am Emily
Bird, the
community
partnerships
manager at
Toimbi Hall
overseeing
Link Age
Plus.
Is there anyone? Do we have any apologies? I know Councillor Cabrillo -Hamed is coming,
he's on his way. Any other apologies?
I have no apologies, Chair, but I do have some people online who are…
Who are… can we…?
Okay, can we get… is it Matthew?
Okay.
Yeah, hello, I can hear you chair. It's Matthew Adrian, the Healthwater Tower Hamlets. So I couldn't be here today.
Thank you. Anyone else online?
Right, I go next. Vicky Scott, I'm the CEO of Tower Hamlets CVS and apologies I'm not there. I will hand over to Katie.
Thanks, Vicki. Hi everyone, I'm Katie Powers. I'm a Public Health Programme Manager in the
Healthy Adults team for Tower Helmets Council. Thank you. Those online, just bear with me.
I will look around and get assistance as well. Just keep an eye out. Thank you very much.
Can I see if members have received the minutes?
Sorry, due to the previous officer leaving, we can only send the minutes.
I don't know if everyone has received the minutes.
If you are okay with the minutes, please, members.
Anyone else?
Yep.
Okay.
That's fine.
So the minutes to confirm are the correct recording of the minutes of the meeting of
the Tahemelet Health and Wellbeing Bill on 29 September 2025.
Also to consider matters arising to follow.
Any DPIs from any members?
I don't have any DPIs.
No DPIs?
Councillor Salih?
Okay, that's fine.
Let's move on to the agenda.
Thank you.
So we'll go to the items considered for today, to be considered today by the Board.
First of all, we have the connexion, coalition, priorities and achievements, pages 11 to 30.
I'll start off with it and then I'll get Shoman and whoever else to step in as well.
So the work of the Taheamnet Connexion Coalition is very close to my heart.
While we may not always think of loneliness as a public health issue,
the reality is chronic loneliness is one of the greatest causes of long -term mental health in the UK,
especially among older residents.
So I've been to many Connexion Coalition events as a lead member,
and I've seen the transformation affect that simply, you know, projects like Warm Hubs.
I went recently to the Eildog's idea store and I could see the Warm Hub there
and I know how that matches the local people there, so it's really nice to see.
And, you know, the Just Say Hello campaign, what they kind of bring to the mental wellbeing
of some of our most vulnerable residents.
So I look forward to hearing from my colleagues and also how we can best focus on the resources
on this programme in the coming year.
I would like myself to see connexion coalition centre collaboration with Tackling Poverty
and Housing Services in the coming year.
So many older residents with little support will interact with the council when they need
poverty relief or housing repairs.
So if those residents can also be connected with connexion and collision services, we
can reach to as many more residents.
I'll get Sean, manager, to come in please.
That's great, yeah.
So as council has said, loneliness is a really significant public health issue.
Actually the need for connexion is a basic human need.
If you don't have that, that has really profound health impacts.
What we want to do today is the connexion and coalition has been developed over a number
of years.
What we want to talk about today is what have we achieved this year, what is the progress
we've made.
We have a plan for next year and what we'd like from the board is any thoughts on whether
these feel like the right priorities and any advice and also how you might promote some
of the work within your organisation.
So that's kind of context for this agenda item.
I'll pass on to Agnes.
Thank you.
So first of all, I want to explain
why I've got a different organisation with me today.
So as public health, I work really closely
with our poverty team, adult social care team,
and also linkage plus.
I just wanted to highlight this is why we came together today.
So moving on.
So as Shoman said, loneliness is a big priority in Tarmlitz.
It's one of our mass priority.
It's included in Tarmlitz vision for 2025 -2035,
where we say that fewer other people feel lonely
or isolated, that's the vision we are trying to achieve.
To achieve this vision, we are working really closely
with many partners across the system, over 100 partners.
I've listed some of them here on this slide,
but these are the really top -line ones.
For example, THCVS, World One, GPKI Group,
TH Connect, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
So what are the key priorities going forward?
These priorities have come from a lot of research,
a lot of focus group, a lot of co -production,
with stakeholders and with our residents.
And the key priorities for the coming years
are system -wide integration.
We want to make loneliness everyone's priority.
We want to raise awareness of all the services we have in town.
We have a lot of really great services that our residents need to know about and our staff need to know about.
We want to make sure our VCS is ready to answer the crisis of loneliness.
We want to make sure we measure the impact of the work we're doing and getting residents out of loneliness and social isolation.
And the last priority is we want to work really closely with our tackling poverty team
Because if you look at the data poverty is really closely associated
with
Loneliness, so that's why we're working really closely with our poverty team
So now I'm gonna go into more detail about these priorities and what we've achieved
So the first priority system -wide
So this is really about making
and we are working on making
loneliness everyone's business.
What we have done in the past
year is we have made sure we have
trained our staff, not only in
public health but also in adult
social care, other services like
customer services, housing, NHS
staff, voluntary sector staff,
and we had four training
sessions.
We have trained over
78 participants and we know
that these participants felt
more confident in having
difficult conversation around
loneliness and were able to
to signpost them to the right places.
And we're also going to attend, as public health,
the Adult Social Care Conference, where
I'm going to be talking about loneliness
and what can adult social care practitioners do.
So that's coming up.
The second priority is raising awareness of services.
As I've said before, in town this
we're really blessed to have many, many local services,
especially the voluntary sector, but also in the NHS,
tackling learning and social isolation.
This year, we really, the priority is to raise awareness of services available for 50 plus,
and we are doing that in partnership with Linkage Plus.
And what we want to do is to make sure as many of our older residents as possible
hear about the service and refer into it.
So we're hoping to reach about 22 ,000 residents at the minimum to hear about this service.
I wanted to show you a film that we've done that's been filmed in Sonali Gardens, one
of our Linkage Plus centres.
So I just wanted to illustrate what this means in reality for residents.
I'm just going to share this video with sound.
Let me just cheque everything is working.
Let's go.
With pool, we've got some real good sharpshooters.
They're quite a handful actually.
hamburger and chips, which I shouldn't have been there.
I'll get into trouble later, but I went before I come here.
Cut that bit.
Yeah, cut that bit.
It's been coming about 10 years now.
Mostly I do the pool and go in the walking group.
And it's a nice place to come and relax.
About twice a week I try to get here. We've got darts, coffee mornings, a lot of different activities, photography club.
And it's good and they're friendly so it's a good place to come.
The general community we have here is very strong. It gives a sense of purpose I suppose.
When I retired, you know, I was like, what do I do now?
But it stood over here.
It's part of your routine, which is good.
I've got a family, but I don't live with the family.
I live by myself since 1985.
I used to come out only at 2 o 'clock at night when everybody's sleeping.
I was depressed.
My doctor recommended me.
Then I start coming every Monday for ten years now, I'm okay. He gave me purpose of life
Come in
And see what you think of it and see if you like it just come along and try it
Practise beforehand if you want, especially if you're gonna play me
At the end of each film we've got a really clear call to action which is joining your local centre and our
residents aged 50 plus can call a number or email and I know already that we're seeing quite a lot of new
residents signing up for Linkage Plus
This is just to give you an idea of the campaign and what we've done. So the campaign was
In as many places as possible the last weeks of January
We had 22 bus stop ads, 36 billboards, digital billboards.
It went out in our newsletter.
We had two local films that were being displayed in our leisure
centres and our libraries.
And we've been trying to work really broadly with partners
like the GP Care Group to get this video in our GP surgeries.
We've been working with ELF to communicate these messages.
And we will really look at an evaluation that's coming up,
looking at, OK, do all the people
know about Linkage Plus, are we seeing increased referrals, and what's the impact on loneliness?
So I'm commissioning an evaluation that will look at this very specifically, because we
want to see results from this campaign.
This is just to give you an idea of what happened last year.
So last year, the campaign, we had 3 ,000 residents engaged.
We had over 30 projects running on estates in Ta Hamlets, and we had some lovely comments
saying people have met for the first time their neighbours, they've come out for the
first time since COVID, so it had a real impact on our residents.
I'm coming to the third priority, which is building the capacity of our voluntary sector,
but also wider partners.
So what we do as part of this work, we have three events a year.
So this year we had one on mental health, one on digital exclusion, and we have another
one coming up on supporting our older residents.
So every time I have about 80 staff coming, there's a lot of staff coming to these events
and it's open to anyone working in TaherNets.
And what I hear from people coming to the events is that it's really great for collaboration,
people start new projects together, they understand better how to refer residents who are lonely and socially isolated.
So I think it's working well and staff is asking for this type of networking events to better know what's available.
Priority four, which is measurement and impact, this is really to make sure we are measuring
our impact across the board in different programmes we're commissioning in public health and as
part of this work we've launched a subgroup which is specifically going to look at the
data and already in time this we've got things like the resident survey and the adult social
care survey that are asking questions around loneliness.
So coming up to priority five, which is working with the tackling poverty team.
So we are working very closely in public health with the poverty team and part of the things
we've done, which the Councillor mentioned earlier on, is the work we're doing with the
warm hubs. So we are part funding warm hubs and I am personally training all the volunteers who
work in the warm hubs to tell them about what's available, you know, through just say hello and
I've had one of Dominique's colleagues
coming to train them about cost of living.
So all our volunteers working in the Warm Hub
can then signpost residents.
We've also used feedback from LinkHPlus users
to improve our Warm Hub offers.
And that's created a lot of improvements,
such as warm packs that are now being delivered to residents.
There's lots of really good work and really targeted work
around pension credit take -up that we've
done with Linkage Plus that has led to very concrete numbers of new older residents signing
up for pension credits.
So I think we can really see the benefits of this work in a very tangible way.
And I am coming to the end of my presentation.
Thank you very much, Agnes, for a thorough explanation and presentation.
Just moving on to members, if any members had any thoughts or questions.
Councillor Bodhicher.
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you for the update.
Obviously tackling loneliness as a core to our equality agenda in the borough.
I am pleased to see that there are strong outreach work that has been done and ongoing obviously.
especially people in older generations and people who are in poverty.
As you said, 22 ,000 was it?
That's a great achievement.
So hopefully we carry on this work.
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Councillor.
I can see Matthew online.
Go ahead.
Thank you, Chair.
It's just really a point of interest really for the presenters.
We're about to start a project at Healthwatch Tower Hamlets looking at the experience of health and care services for older residents,
specifically from the Somali, Jewish, Chinese and Vietnamese communities in Tower Hamlets.
So our further request from me is if you can help us promote that and maybe put us in contact with some of those communities,
but also with the insights and feedback that we received so you can obviously look to improve services moving forward.
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you. Did you want to come in, Agnes?
So, as part of the work, we've got professional events, and I've got one coming up very shortly,
so I can give you the details and you'll have access to this network of professionals working on Narniness,
and I also have a mailing list, so yes, I will be more than happy to help you.
Thank you, Agnes.
Okay. Any other members want to come in here? Councillor Amy?
There we go.
There's the wrong button.
My question
relates to what Matthew just raised.
How are we making sure
that I see the stuff about
raising awareness
and what we have been doing
in the media to promote this,
how are we making sure
this is reaching everyone
in sometimes
those hard -to -reach
communities sometimes?
I think that's a really
good piece of work
that Health Watch are
planning on doing there
because that's communities
that don't often get told
So how are we making sure that we are reaching those people?
The media campaign, there is a host of materials, some of them featuring different types of residents.
So here you saw men, which is a particular demographic we want to reach, because they don't usually engage.
But also we have materials for the Bangladeshi population, and we are in the process of translating one of the video.
We also have a lot of the activities residents can access are bilingual staff.
So we are very much aware of this aspect and also through the coalition I am working with voluntary sector organisation that specialises into different demographics.
So it could be Somali, Chinese or different types of demographics.
So it's also working through the voluntary sector.
So that's two things really.
There's the publicity campaign with lots of materials.
Some of them are going to be translated
or are translated already.
And also working through the voluntary sector
and the activities that are available
are welcoming to all different types of residents.
Do you want to come in?
Yeah, I mean, so Link Age Plus has been...
So Link Age Plus has been commissioned since 2008, so the partners have a sort of 17 -year
history of Link Age Plus in the borough, which I think, and we're very lucky that we have
staff in place who have been there since 2008, so they're really, really embedded in the
community into those underserved groups. I think with the Just Say Hello events that
will be happening this year across the housing estates,
that's an in -person opportunity for our outreach workers
to go and meet people in person.
And I think that is really key to get people registered
and into these activities is to meet them where
they're at in the community.
So all of the brilliant groups that
have been funded through the grants programme of Just Say
Hello campaign will all get a visit, if not multiple visit,
from Link Age Plus staff to talk about what we do and ease people into the process of
maybe, yeah, it might be the first time that they're rejoining a community centre for whatever
reason and they're going to know a face and they're going to know a name and they know
when they go into that centre they're going to be greeted by that person which I think
we know is really important for our older residents.
Thank you.
Yeah, I did have a similar question to Councillor Amy.
It's really important that we do reach out to those who usually don't come out,
like the Somali community, etc.
So it's nice to hear from you guys.
In terms of diversity in the staff or the voluntary or the statute partners,
do you have, I don't know, culturally sensitive different language speakers,
for example, to kind of attract or make residents more comfortable to come forward?
Yeah
Yes. Yes, we do. We do across the linkage plus hubs
And we try to meet people
either in a neutral space or in a non neutral space where
staff who reflect
The community can go in so we've been doing a lot of work with the GP
Care Network who have been doing doctor digital events at East London mosque
so again, we've been sort of jumping on the bandwagon of some of our health partners by using it as a way to
advertise, link HPlus, whilst they're going to Doctor Digital to learn about
how to use the NHS app, we can talk to them about social activities that are
available as well.
So the way the campaign works is lots of different layers and we're
also very aware of a good way to recruit residents, it's through volunteers, so
So that's why we've been training volunteers in the warm hubs and public health volunteers,
a lot of whom are global majority residents as well.
So yeah, it's a really good way to spread the information and recruit these hard to
reach residents.
Just your mic.
Okay, yeah.
Just part of the Just Say Hello campaign.
How are we trying to make residents in terms of, you know, coming out more as well?
It's absolutely okay to share your storey or it's not a bad thing to share if you're lonely.
Because sometimes in the culture, some people don't find it comfortable.
So what are we doing in terms of making it more comfortable for people?
And saying in the part of the campaign it's absolutely okay to come forward.
Making it not like you're vulnerable but not putting the residents down.
Thank you.
I've had many conversations with our older residents.
I went to the older people reference group.
I also went to a resident panel with our older residents.
And what people were telling me, as you said,
especially in the Bangladeshi community,
there is a lot of stigma around talking about loneliness.
It's not something some communities want to talk about.
And what residents said is, we want something
that's a clear call to action about, you know, like, do join a local group, visit
your local community hall down the road, which is, you know, something for them
to do rather than directly addressing the question. So it's more, you know, it's
like a roundabout way of talking about it. But we are really, this campaign is
very much about encouraging people to take that first step and taking them by
hand in some scenario to show them where the centre is and accompany them to the first
session.
Thank you very much.
Anyone else want to come in?
Councillor Salute and then Steve.
Thank you, Jill.
I just want to ask you something.
it could be very isolated case, but at least one case I know.
In general, I'm just asking a question.
When a family member is responsible
for a elderly person's care,
and he or she, whatever, being paid for and everything,
how closely you often keep an eye on them
that they're getting the service through that person, what
we provide.
At least one case, I mean, in my ward,
the gentleman in that case is very much in pain.
And he got in touch with me secretly,
but he didn't want to expose it because of the family
tie within the house.
So what you have been, have you been any such incidents or maybe it's very rare but it does
matter what you've got in place for that?
Yeah, I mean we 100 % respect people's privacy of whether they let their family know if they
of activities and groups that we offer, people never have to say I'm coming here
because I'm lonely, they can say I'm coming here because I'm going to seated
exercise class or I'm coming here because I've got English Conversation
Club and within those activities that's where they find their social connexion
and as a provider you know we take it seriously to get to know people
individually and make sure the service is as person -centred as possible.
That means building up trust with people, but if people were to have additional needs
that we noticed, we would chat to them about that, chat to them about their options with
having a phone call with Tower Hamlets Connect, we can be in the room with you if you need
to do that, to help you through that conversation.
Is it a, you know, we think you should have a chat with your GP and then obviously we all have sort of safeguarding in place should we need to escalate it further to keep that person safe.
But yeah, we hope that the range of things we offer mean that people don't have to necessarily identify as lonely in order to come to our sessions necessarily.
so that they don't have to let family know that they're coming because they're wanting to meet people and they are feeling isolated.
What about the ones that in some cases you find some people are bed bound and they're probably mentally fit but not physically to come out?
So I'm glad you raised that because, you know, when we did the work on priorities, we did
a lot of interviews with stakeholders and residents and this came up, the housebound
theme, like what do we do for people who can't leave the house, and it's something that's
– it's some other work that's not part of the Connexion Coalition, but we really
want to think about it for next financial year and maybe work together with different
partners who are in this field because I think there is a desperate need for our residents
for a connexion service if you're housebound.
There are some things currently in Tahaanet,
but it's a bit patchy, and you don't get the same service
according to where you live,
so I think there's definitely a gap there.
And I think as a council, something we should look at.
I'm sure there is, because for us,
the case I know is something lacking there, to be honest.
Thank you Councillor, Steve.
Thank you Chair. It's really good to hear about the way your outreach works because I think that first step is really important
and some people physically need support to go out to that first group or session so that's really good.
I just wondered about any opportunities for intergenerational working and there's some really nice pieces of work
where older people go in and help with reading in school or even we've got a massive youth
service in town that's now always interested in doing work with different groups of service
users so yeah if you've got any thoughts about that thanks.
So I've been working with the different partners, a lot of the venture sector, NHS and council
and there there isn't that many intergenerational activities right now.
There is a few funded through the grants team, but it's something again that keeps coming up.
It's something that our residents would like. It's something our entry sector is interested in.
But I think funding is the problem, but I know a few projects that are running
I'm currently in Tarnas doing intergenerational activities.
So we do have a number of intergenerational activities across all of our hubs
and that comes from a need from our service users that have said we want to not just be with people of the same age,
we want to interact with people who are younger.
So we have an intergenerational English conversation club which ranges from 18 to 70 of our service users.
There are a number of really brilliant intergenerational charities in the borough that we've worked with in the past.
There's Magic Me which is based in Bethnal Green that have been in the borough for a long time.
There's also InCommon, so we have a number of hubs that have primary school children that go in and do sessions together.
But yeah, it's the funding because it's about the complexities of bringing two groups together
who both have different needs and making sure that you've got the right things in place
in order for them all to have a good experience.
So yeah, we would love to do more intergenerational work and it's something our service users
ask for all the time.
But yeah, it's about those pots of money which can often be this is for older people
and this is for children, rather than this is about bringing those two groups together.
Thank you, Chair. I think many colleagues have covered in terms of reaching out to the
hard to reach groups. But my question was around, I've heard you've mentioned the
London mosque but I can't see any evidence or anything in there within
the presentation that you've reached you've reached out to because in
timeless we have a very active faith organisations like the mosque the church
synagogue and we also have for example Council of mosque we have the timeless
interfaith forum they're very active and they do mobilise a lot of people so have
Have you done any work with them?
I mean, I can't see any evidence within the recommendation.
So at our last Steering Group for the Connexion Coalition,
which was two weeks ago, we talked about exactly this,
using the Council of Mosques and different face partners.
We have someone presenting churches.
And so this is on my work plan.
And the publicity campaign is going on
until the end of March and is something
I'm going to be working on in the coming months.
But I think you're very right.
That network is key because people often turn to their face when they are lonely, so it's
a really good place to transfer the information.
Yeah, funny enough, I was going to ask about the council, but yeah.
Thank you, Councillor.
There's no one else.
I'm happy that the work of the connexion coalition supports the borough -wide strategy
plan, you know, 2025, 2045, our tyre hamlets, that fewer older people feel lonely or isolated,
and here in tyre hamlets we have one in ten residents who feel lonely always or sometimes,
So it's really good work that we really champion this and trying to reach out to as many of those people who need that support.
Thank you very much.
Moving on to the next agenda.
We have the SAB Strategy 2025 to 2030.
That is pages 31 to 62.
Since the lead member of health, since last summer, we have had a new great chair, Fiona, who has been really ambitious and has gone above and beyond to make the Hamlets more of a more proactive and more focusing on key areas of risk and harm that affect our local region.
residents, so I've seen the significant transformations that the Council has in its
Safeguarding Adults Board. So this has in the new draught Safeguarding Adults Board strategy,
which I have reviewed in detail and happy with as well. The new priorities of this strategy
are closely aligned with both the needs of our residents and the goals of this Administration.
Tahemelet suffers from particularly high rates of domestic abuse and homelessness compared
to the rest of London and being a barometer of high rates of poverty and uniquely diverse
demographics also means that inequality in how safeguarding issues are responded or reported
as well. And then centering these areas of focus on a new strategy shows that we are
not taking a generic approach to safeguarding, but more of a tailored and to our local community
and those who are at most risk.
So I look forward to hear what colleagues have to say on this strategy as well and I'll
give it to Navid to come in.
Thank you, Chair.
So you've covered a lot of the points that I was going to raise, actually.
So I think it's fair to say that the Safeguarding Adults Board over the last 18 months has been
through quite a transition.
We've had a number of changes of leadership, but with Fiona coming on board, there's been
a lot more of a focus in terms of firstly establishing where the gaps are, where the
SAB isn't where we want it to be, but also trying to understand what needs exist out
there amongst our community that the SAB needs to be focused on in terms of holding partners
to account.
And so we've, through the development of the SAB strategy, there was lots of co -production
work in collaboration both with our residents but also with stakeholders to kind of understand
those two kind of questions.
Where can the partnership be more efficacious in terms of how it operates and what are the
And the five priorities that are listed in the strategy, on page 31 of the papers, address
what those specific needs are.
And so homelessness, obviously we're talking about street homelessness here.
The people that suffer from street homelessness are often some of the most vulnerable in our
community.
So have a number of multiple needs, whether it's substance misuse issues, mental health
issues but obviously find themselves in a really vulnerable situation and one of the
kind of key metrics that we often come across is the number of deaths that occur where people
are street homeless and so we know it's a real issue, we know it's a challenge in the
borough and so that is an area of focus for us as a partnership, making sure that we have
oversight of the work that's going on amongst our kind of various partners and that includes
the council and making sure that that work is having the desired impact that we wanted
to have in terms of supporting our residents.
Safety from domestic abuse, obviously DAE is a huge priority for the council.
We've got the violence against women and girls strategy which we adopted last year.
And again this is about making sure that the implementation of that strategy is on track
and we've got traction and support from the relevant partners in terms of delivering that.
The transitional safeguarding was also identified as a priority and this is where we've got
young people being transitioned into adult services and making sure that we've got the
right support in place for them as well.
It's an area of focus across both adults and children.
There's a transitions kind of working group and a board been set up to address some of
that work as well and again this is about making sure that the SAB has oversight of
that particular agenda.
The last two priorities I'll talk to you are tackling inequalities. We see from lots of data that there is under -representation in terms of safeguarding referrals and concerns from some communities and in fact an over -representation from other communities.
And so this is about making sure that we support our local residents in understanding what
safeguarding is, what the right referral mechanisms and processes are, and making sure that they
have the kind of the right information to be able to support their loved ones and people
that they are concerned about.
And then the final element is just strengthening our partnership working.
And I think we recognise that we undertake what are called safeguarding annual, safeguarding
adults reviews where something that has not quite worked and a vulnerable person has either
and sadly died or has not received the kind of services that they want. We take a thorough
investigation through an independent investigator and there are a series of recommendations that
come back. We need to kind of make sure that we've got the right mechanisms that these
recommendations are being implemented swiftly and effectively and that we're learning from
the kind of issues that present.
And like lots of SABs, sometimes that's not as effective as we want it to be,
and so strengthening that particular arrangement is important.
Similarly, from a governance perspective, we've got homelessness as a priority,
but we need to kind of make sure that we've got the right people from the right partnerships,
and they are effectively engaged in the work of the SAB.
And again, that's a key priority for us as well.
What's really pleasing about the strategy is that a lot of work is actually already in train in terms of addressing this.
So we've started to establish working arrangements with a number of housing providers in the borough.
Poplar Harker have been involved. In fact, we got an email this morning from Notting Hill Housing Trust who also want to be involved as well in terms of this particular work.
In terms of tackling inequalities, we've commissioned an organisation called the Anne Craft Trust
and they've done outreach and engagement work with our local residents in terms of understanding that.
So there's been engagement work with East London Mosque, there's also been engagement work with some of our co -production groups that we have within the council
in terms of understanding what their experience is of safeguarding, what their understanding is of safeguarding and where the gaps are and where we can improve.
The strategy, although only signed off just before Christmas, we've already started implementation of that.
We will be doing a wrap up in our annual report which we'll bring to cabinet just to demonstrate what progress we've achieved.
So that gives you an overview but I'm happy to take any questions.
Thank you Naveed. Anyone online or here?
Do you want to come in?
Councillor Kabirahum has been very quiet today, not usually.
Do you want to come in?
So just a couple of suggestions first, particularly around homelessness.
One of the areas is to consider if you've, I know you've mentioned Poploharka and Nauticale Genesis,
But have you had a approach to discuss with these issues with TAHOOF, which is the federated
body of all the housing associations in Tower Hamlets?
Karen Swift can possibly play a conduit towards that, because she's one of the council reps
who sits on that.
Housing scrutiny has a TAHOOF rep come in, so it might be an opportunity to approach
with that.
I was also just going to comment around the association of substance misuse with street
homelessness and also things along the lines of widening it slightly in terms of BBVs,
hepatitis C, sharing of needles, as well as paraphernalia and so on and so forth and sort
how we can move towards micro elimination in relation to that.
Thank you.
I wasn't aware of the to -who connexions.
That was really helpful.
Thank you for that.
And yes, we kind of note the point around kind of broader engagement around the substance
misuse item.
Thank you.
Councillor Boudicciardi.
Thank you, Chair.
Yes, welcome and support the new strategy, particularly when it focuses on inequalities.
I think Navid mentioned that already. The data is clear.
Some communities we are not able to... Is there something you could give us a bit more insight into?
Obviously there is a very diverse community that lives in Terre Haime. 150 languages are spoken here.
So if you could give us a bit more insight into that, that would be nice. Thank you.
I will provide you with the annual report which has a much more detailed breakdown in terms of what those key disparities are.
If I was to describe them broadly, we've got an under -representation in terms of referrals and concerns coming from our Bangladeshi community,
relative to the size of that population in the borough, and an over -representation of referrals and concerns coming from some of our African Caribbean and Black African communities,
relative to the size of that population in the borough.
Those are the kind of key issues that we find,
but we also find that there's a disproportionate number
of safeguarding concerns around females that are coming through,
just given the vulnerabilities that exist out in the borough,
and then some of the kind of age disparities as well.
So there are a kind of confluence of different metrics that I can provide,
but I'm happy to provide the annual report outside of this.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councillor.
Is there anyone online that want to come in?
Thank you for everyone's contribution.
So we'll move on to the next agenda.
I think it's on the Better Care Fund update, pages 63 to 76.
First of all I'd like to thank colleagues from the Council and the NHS for their work on maintaining the Better Care Fund.
I have had the opportunity to review the outcomes of the better care fund and I can say there
has been significant progress over the last year, particularly around discharge delays
and both the length of discharge delays and the number of delayed discharges at the lowest
they have been in some time.
With that being said, there is always room for improvement and I believe the recommendations
from the NEL BCF review provide us with a strong starting point for utilising this pot
of money more effectively.
So I will hand off to the officers who can elaborate further.
Elia, please come in.
That is myself.
Hello, good evening, Chair.
My name is Elia Islam.
I'm the Better Care Fund and Integrated Neighbourhood Team programme lead and I'll be presenting the paper today.
I'm just going to
bring it up on the slide. So, hopefully if you let me know that you can see this.
Yes, we can.
Okay, great.
Thank you. So this paper is an update on the Better Care Fund. The report provides our performance against the key metrics, which you'll be very familiar with, Chair, and also the Health and Wellbeing Board will be.
And the report provides a progress on the deep dive review
that we started in September last year.
And it also outlines, as you've said,
chair the outcome of the Northeast London wide review
of the BCF NHS minimum contributions
and what we know so far about the BCF reform changes
to come in 26, 27.
Chair, you and the board are asked to note the updates
in the paper and that we will return
with the proposed plan for 26 -27 back to the board
by the end of the quarter.
So by way of a very quick reminder,
the Better Care Fund is our single shared plan
for how health, housing and social care work together
to keep people well at home
and to get them the right support quickly when they need it.
It brings ICB and council resources into one plan
so we can demonstrate how we work locally
in an integrated way to deliver in prevention,
neighbourhood -based care,
rapid response, reablement and safe timely discharge.
The aim is simple, fewer avoidable admissions,
faster recovery, reduced long -term care needs
and a more joined up experience for residents.
So the BCF essentially is a mechanism
that holds us collectively accountable
for delivering that as a system.
A large part of what we pull locally
comes from the NHS minimum contribution,
which you'll see is a breakdown in the slides
in this report.
The amount is set nationally.
we don't choose it locally and a proportion of it is given to adult social care services that have direct health benefits.
So we've consistently met that requirement in Tower Hamlets and just to sort of finish off to say that the task really is with the planning
is about deciding, it isn't about, sorry, deciding how we allocate new funding because there isn't new funding in these arrangements.
Our role is to work together to make sure the resources we already pull are being used
in a way that supports the outcomes that we need to deliver nationally and locally.
So this slide provides an overview of the BCF work that's been undertaken in the last
year or so.
Chair, you may recall and the board may recall that we started a deep dive review with the
guidance and agreement from urgent care working group,
Townless Together Board and Health and Wellbeing Board
on specific discharge related schemes.
This was chaired by one of our hospital directors
with a joint group representing our partnership
and working to review the findings.
The review process is very structured
and the purpose of that work is looking at our schemes
and confirming assurance alignment and readiness
to have our plan for 26 -27.
It's about ensuring that our pooled budgets
continue to support the outcomes
that are required nationally,
and that both partners remain jointly accountable
for how these resources support residents and system flow.
We have reports completed by each of the schemes
that were subject to the deep dive review,
and we've started to look at the findings.
We currently transitioning with the chairing
of the review group and bringing Chanel,
our new Director of Adult Social Care up to speed with the work that's being done so far.
I'm conscious of time so I won't go through all the slides but I thought it might be useful
to just update the board on the upcoming reform. So in early autumn we had a national announcement
of a reform of the Better Care Fund and the announcement to say that for 26 -27 we'll be
expecting to have the BCF plan sit within the Neighbourhood Health Plan to be a key enabler
that drives integrated neighbourhood health. The BCF is also having a name upgrade to be called the
ICFF, so the Integrated Care Funding Framework. The key shift is that the BCF will place a much
stronger emphasis on intermediate care,
reablement and short -term support,
and it will be increasingly tied
to neighbourhood -based models of care.
So 26 -27 is expected to be a deliberate transition year.
So systems will largely maintain the core delivery
while redesigning how BCF resources
support neighbourhood delivery, intermediate care,
rehab, reablement and prevention and demand management.
So that transition is intended to prepare us for fuller reform from 26 -27.
So crucially, the reform is expected to be evolution at the moment, so the BCF contributions
will remain in place for 26 -27 and any reconfiguration will be phased with no major changes anticipated
before 2028 -29.
Health and wellbeing boards will be consulted, we've been told nationally, on any future
changes and there is no expectation that funding will be taken away from place. So
the message really here is that there is stability in the short term but a
clear signal that we have to look at reshaping how we use the BCF to back
neighbourhood health, intermediate care and prevention. Chair, you'll recall that
we obtained agreement to submit our expression of interest for tailored
national programme support to help us without developing our neighbourhood
Health and BCF plan. We were one of 15 boroughs in the country to be successful in our application.
So our executive team have had the initial meeting with the local government association and their
partners who will be supporting us through this upcoming planning process. I'm going to leave it
there because I'm sure the board and chair you are very familiar with the metrics and
the contributions within the BCF and I will take any questions if there are any. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We do regularly have the opportunity to meet and discuss about this.
You've always been very... any kind of questions or whatever, you've always updated me.
So you've answered one of the questions I was going to ask about the plan for the next year in light of preparing for the national reform.
Anyone else want to come in?
Any questions?
Councillor?
Thank you.
I just wanted to question about the findings of the deep dive.
I know the group, the task and finish group, they reconvened in January.
I just wanted to know the recommendation, when will it come to the Health and Wellbeing
Board?
How soon will it come to us?
So I suppose we're going to be running it concurrently along the lines of the
planning as well so we're waiting for the national guidance to drop to tell us
what needs to be included in the 26 -27 plan. The outcomes and findings from the
review are likely to be focused on where we could have improvements or better
alignment along those pathways rather than complete removal because the
schemes that we are reviewing are discharge related and will be crucial to the upcoming
BCF reform because that's part of the core planning for that. We are expecting to come
back with that, Councillor, in this quarter.
Thank you.
Joja come in.
Thank you.
Councillor Mayim, so what we are hoping that the review will do is the review will get us in a position where we understand how we're using current BCA funding,
where there are opportunities for us to do something differently so that when we get the new guidance from government,
we are actually then quite agile and able to move to start to implement the new requirements.
So I think for the purposes of the Health and Wellbeing Board, it probably makes sense for us to wait for the government guidance
so that we can actually give you an early sight of that once we receive it.
Thank you, Joja. Councillor Bodo, do you have anything to add?
Thank you, Chair. I welcome the update, obviously. They're doing some great work.
but I just want to make sure, obviously the deep dive approach is very good.
Just to encourage that it includes variation in the access work that it takes on,
making sure we are getting to the roots of it.
That's very important to us and so we can implement the services
borough wide wherever it's needed.
Obviously this is provided to people who are facing poverty,
obviously with disability issues and people who have language barriers as well.
So if that could be noted, chair.
Thank you.
Anyone else want to come in now online?
Okay.
Thank you very much for everyone's contribution.
You don't want to come in with me?
You're fine.
Thank you very much.
Moving on to the last agenda, mental health strategy.
So I'm really happy that we've got the opportunity today to discuss the direction of this strategy with our partners today.
By the findings of our recently completed mental health needs assessment,
and it's kind of clear that for many of our most vulnerable residents,
mental health issues are only becoming more severe and common.
So there is still quite a lot of work to do in understanding what new steps are needed
to address the rising complexity of mental ill health in the borough
and the growing cracks in existing systems that have accelerated the conditions of so many.
So today we've got the opportunity and hopefully we can have a better understanding of what new and innovative approaches our officers have identified to improve that collaborative service offer.
I will ask Adam Price to speak.
Sorry, what was the name?
Adam.
Adam.
Over to you.
Hello.
Excuse me, sorry.
Hello, Adam Price.
I'm the strategy and policy lead for health and adult social care
within Taohama's council.
So I don't know, Sherman, if you want to say a few words
otherwise I'm happy to launch it.
You can have a few brief, yeah, words.
I mean, I think Adam's going to present it,
but I think one of the discussions we've been having
about that take place within a context of quite significant kind of
organisational change that impacts on how we think about the kind of where
this sits you know obviously in terms of the ICB restructures mental health
commissioning impacts there's quite a few unknowns I don't think they've got a
representative from the ICB here but it just takes place in that context but
It's a very important strategy for the borough.
Yeah, Adam.
Thank you, Sherman.
Just go through this thing, sorry,
trying to bring up notes.
So, as Sherman said, what we wanted to do
was to bring initial findings back
from the needs assessments that have taken place,
both in adults and children's.
We've had apologies last minute from our children's colleagues.
So Katie Powers has very kindly agreed
to step in and cover those slides as well from the needs
assessment front.
We have then also intended to run through that scope
and governance and the proposals around how
to take forward the adults' mental health strategy.
But as Shoman has alluded, one of the things
that's come out of discussions at the boards
leading up to bringing this item here
is that it has flagged some kind of question marks around the sort of how, where and how
this work should be taken forward and we'll come on to that but I think sort of getting
the input from the Health and Wellbeing Board on that discussion will be really important
for this piece of work so I'm very pleased to be here today.
So just very briefly to give a little bit of context before I hand over to Katie to
run us through the assessment slides.
The previous adults mental health strategy did expire in 2024.
The decision was taken to delay slightly the introduction of a new needs assessment strategy
so that we can make sure that we include most up to date information specifically the 10
adult psychiatric morbidity survey so that's the data from that is now with
public health colleagues who are finalising the adult strategy and just
just to explain this slide gap there. The needs assessment for children's mental
health was completed concurrently and that work I believe has already kind of
come up here for discussion and through boards just to say that the
accelerate strategy already contains strategic priorities relating to mental health and direction
there.
So a targeted delivery plan will be completed that draws on that strategy rather than duplicates
the work under a full children's strategy.
Hence why we're talking about adults a lot of the time rather than children's.
However, just to note that one of the key bits of feedback that we've already had from
DHT board was around just making sure that there is that alignment and consideration
of the whole system.
Which is why we've included children's information as part of what we're doing today to sort
of show that we are aware of and give an idea of what's happening across the beast.
So Katie, if I bring you in now.
Yeah, absolutely.
Thanks, Adam.
So hi everyone. I led on the adults mental health needs assessment
So I'll just give a very brief overview of the findings and conclusions as kind of context of discussion about the strategy this evening
So in terms of the findings, first of all
The needs assessment has confirmed that there is high and rising mental health need in Tower Hamlets
So the prevalence of common mental illnesses
These are things like anxiety and depression, is higher in Tower Hamlets than in Northeast London overall,
with working adults in Tower Hamlets between the ages of 30 and 60 being particularly affected.
This need has also risen over the last five to ten years, due both to kind of the rising
need itself as well as population increases in the borough. And then the prevalence of severe
mental illness, so these are things like schizophrenia and psychosis disorders, has remained pretty
steady, but again it's higher than the average for Northeast London as well as the average
for London as a whole. And then along with that high need, there's also unmet need, kind
of broadly and then in particular groups. And from resident engagement that we did,
we know that barriers like stigma and distrust of services do prevent people from approaching
services even when they might need support. And that unmet need is not evenly distributed
and inequalities persist, so there are a few clear examples of that that we found. We can see that
prevalence of mental illness has a relationship with deprivation. Women experience higher rates
of common mental illnesses than men, and then most starkly, black men experience disproportionately
high rates of severe mental illness and also have higher hospital admissions rates and
significantly higher rates of detention under the Mental Health Act.
And then the final key finding that I have here is around the system itself and the gaps
and pressures there.
So the rising number and complexity of cases is putting pressure on service capacity.
There's a bit of a gap for people who are kind of quote in the middle, so these are
people with moderate need or additional complexities and it's not always clear what support is
right or available for them.
And then the system itself is also very complex and challenging for service users to navigate
and for professionals sometimes to make appropriate referrals within.
Next slide please Adam.
Thanks. So just to kind of summarise all of that, there are four main conclusions really.
So one is that poor mental health is driving rises in demand that are faster here in Tower
Helmlets than elsewhere, and demand is outpacing capacity in many areas. Current models kind
of likely wouldn't be able to absorb future growth necessarily. Second, that major inequalities
persist and are deepening for specific communities. Third, the system is kind of fragmented and
difficult to navigate and inequitable in practise with particular groups falling through the gaps.
And then fourth, I also did want to highlight that there is really good work that's innovative
happening in the borough and we should look to kind of build on these pieces of work as part
the strategy. Next slide please. Yeah so here we've got some slides as Adam mentioned from
the Children's Mental Health JSNA that my colleagues in the Healthy Children's and Families
team did. So this is just additional context for tonight's discussion. As Adam said unfortunately
the children's representative is unable to attend so I'll just kind of give a very brief overview
of these. So in terms of the findings, very high level. Again there's high and increasing demand
for mental health support for children and young people. There's also a gap here as well
for those with kind of mild to moderate levels of need. There are gaps in some of the data
that's available. Families face barriers to accessing helpful and supportive activities.
Cultural tailoring could be strengthened within services. The system, again, similar to adults,
is complex for services to understand. And then finally, there's a finding around co -production
and how insight work is not always utilised as well as it could be. Next slide please Adam.
Thank you. And then from that JSNA again as Adam's already mentioned, there have been a set of five
recommendations that have been developed based on the aim of the Tower Helmets Children and Families
partnership strategy to implement the Thrive Framework and in early September 2025 these
recommendations were reviewed and agreed by the Tower Hamlets CYP Mental Health and Emotional
Well -Being Board which is the group responsible for delivering on that aim of the strategy.
So thanks very much. That's the sort of context. I'll pass back to Adam now for more strategy
discussion.
Thanks Katie. So from what we've seen from those needs assessments there is a
clear need for a joined up system -wide partnership approach around mental
health to address the conclusions that we've seen. The next few slides are
essentially to run us through kind of the proposals that were initially
developed around the kind of scope and the potential model that we could take
It's probably worth noting just that when initial conversations were had around this,
it was suggested that the Mental Health Partnership Board reporting into the Health and Wellbeing
Board would be the best place to manage and provide oversight of that.
However, there have been some issues flagged as part of boards leading up that suggested
suggested that that may not be quite the right place.
And so what I might do is take us relatively quickly
through the next few slides around that
to get us to the kind of wider discussion
that I think is gonna be incredibly valuable
to have the health and wellbeing boards input.
But I did want to just quickly run through
some of the initial thinking and scope that been done
and then bring us on to that discussion.
So the initial suggestion has been that we retain the kind of high level priorities around
the mental adult mental health strategy.
Those are the ones shown there about raising awareness and understanding, making sure that
early help is available and that support is available in times of crisis and ensuring
the provision of high quality mental health care and treatment as part of our system.
And we've heard briefly about the kind of children's thrive approach.
One suggestion as well was that the adults mental health strategy could consider adopting
a similar framework as part of its action plan.
I won't run us through the detail of that, but I have included a slide on that and a
link there for people who are interested in a bit more of that detail.
That kind of initial thinking on what that's all ages approach and strategy on a page might look like is here.
Just in terms of the boards at the top, thinking about making sure that we have consistent principles across both the adults and children's systems.
The kind of top level strategic priorities set out as part of the accelerating an adult mental health strategy.
and then delivering them via the Children's Services delivery plan which sits with the Children's Health and Emotional Wellbeing Board and an Adults Mental Health Action Plan.
But also a suggestion came through that we might want to make sure we're explicitly considering that whole system improvement approach rather than risk that falling between the gaps.
So that essentially means those kind of three components to the delivery of strategies there.
As I said, I'm just going to move us on to this.
So because while the sort of outline that I've just run us through sets out the general approach that we can take,
the conversations that we've had, for example, as part of Health and Adult Social Care DMT and the Council,
and as part of the THT board have shown us that there are some serious questions that
require health and wellbeing board input with respect to ownership and oversight of a mental
health strategy. So the particular comments that we've had through were around the mental
health partnership board not necessarily being constituted in a way that it would be able
to manage a strategy of this scope currently.
And then also the concerns, or the question marks
around the ICB restructure that may result
in the removal of or changes to roles
that are central to the kind of delivery
and oversight of work in this area.
So the view of the Health and Wellbeing Board
is being requested in terms of understanding
where we feel that leadership and direction
for a partnership approach to that mental health strategy
would best sit. There are sort of one or two comments we could make in terms of suggestions
around reconstituting the Mental Health Partnership Board that I'm happy to speak to if helpful,
but I thought probably more valuable to pass over now to the Health and Wellbeing Board
for comment. And I'll leave the questions up there for now in case it's helpful to have
a look at those.
Thank you very much for your presentation. Any members want to come in now? Councillor
Kibbe? Thank you. Just two areas of inquiry. The
first is around co -production and I know we work with professionals. How will we integrate
lived experience within that, number one, or is this going to be a high level paper
with just professional involvement around that?
And the second area is have we got any benchmarking around sort of a number of section two or
section three within our mental health institutes and, you know, sort of escalation around those
areas?
There is one other which was the local authority where I work.
We have a joint every morning, what we call a MASH meeting, particularly for young people,
where partnership bodies come together and share information first thing in the morning
to intervene where we can, where there are issues.
Is there any kind of dynamic approach like that embedded in Tower Hamlets where vulnerable children or adults can have that partnership taskforce address their needs?
Thank you for your questions. I may bring in one or two of the people that I know are on the call just in relation to those questions.
Just to say first in terms of co -production that I know in terms of integrated the kind
of voice of lived experience into the work, quite a lot of work has already been done
as part of the needs assessment in terms of bringing in targeted focus groups and working
with those with lived experience and the fuller document I know does bring out some of those
elements.
just to speak quickly on that and potentially if she's aware around the kind of benchmarking
on sectioning I might quickly pass over to Katie Powers and I did see Carrie Kilpatrick's
hand go up as well who may be able to speak more to that last one.
Thanks Adam. In terms of the co -production element and the lived experience element it's
quite a significant amount of resident voice in the needs assessment as Adam has alluded
to there. We did four focus groups with some specific resident groups that included Bangladeshi
women, Black men, Somali women, and service users. And I also got some kind of representative
voice from lots of community organisations as well. So that's definitely reflected in
the document and there's a whole sort of section on resident voice so hopefully that's built
into the evidence base already in terms of co -production for the strategy. I think that
is kind of, we would like there to be resident voice lived experience as part of that development,
but that's sort of more, I think, Adam's territory. And for the benchmarking, that's not particular
data that I looked at. Carrie might have a better idea about that data for us locally.
Carrie, do you know?
For the sectioning data, Councillor, I don't have that on the tip of my tongue. I think
we'd need to have a look at that. When we've looked at it in the past, I think those key
themes that come through are the ones that Katie's already mentioned. So we did compare
favourably. We do have higher levels, as do other London boroughs of sectioning around
young black men and the like, but I think we'd need to go away and source that information.
I think it's an important consideration when we are developing the strategy, so we do need
to make sure that that is reflected in our needs assessment work. On the item in regard
to wider consultation and community engagement, the Mental Health Partnership, what is its
currently constituted is made up of people with lived experience or people that use mental
health services or have used mental health services in the past. And that is that we
do have a very good representation there. So they have shaped certainly the priority
areas that we've been looking at up till now and have overseen the two core pillars of
of the previous strategy up till now and that's made up of representation from our provider
alliance partners, the people that use those services and also ALFAT at the moment.
Before I call Councillor Amy, Shoman, do you want to come in?
Yeah, it was just a point about co -production in terms of, the co -production we've done
so far is more around co -production in the development of the needs assessment and the
insights. I think one of the things that we really need to think about is how do we co -produce
this strategy in a meaningful way because as Katie was saying this is one of the most
significant issues, health issues in the borough and it's getting worse and so we really need
to think about how we really properly do co -production and that might take a little bit longer for
strategy but that really needs to be a principle that we apply to how we develop this.
Thank you, Sherman.
Councillor Aimele?
Thank you for those.
I just wonder if you can help me understand.
This idea of a whole system improvement plan and the sort of aligning the work between the two,
I think my question is essentially, I appreciate the idea behind it, but do the needs align?
I don't know if that makes sense. I appreciate that it makes sense to have sort of aligning work streams,
but my question is, I'm just looking at what's in the needs assessments.
There's definitely some shared issues in terms of fragmented services,
but I wonder if I'm explaining myself correctly.
Are we going to get to a point where we're just doing something
because the other one is doing it,
and it's still essentially being two separate work streams
rather than a genuine whole partnership approach, if that at all makes sense?
No, I think a fair question.
I suppose what we didn't want to see
was just a children's plan being developed
that covered children's items and an adult strategy developed
that covered adults' items without necessarily recognising
that there are a number of cross -cutting areas
within the recommendations that do require that sort of larger system approach.
So I think exactly whether that is the right approach is open for discussion.
But I think as long as we're making sure that we are considering things across the piece where they need to be,
not necessarily everywhere for the sake of it,
but would be a valuable challenge to have,
whether we include that within the adult strategy as its own section
or whether we consider a wider plan developed with children,
looking at where explicitly we want to pull out those areas of overlap.
I think it's more about just making sure that we're not getting locked into our own point of view
without recognising that there is that, those overarching cross -cutting issues.
Thank you. Anyone else want to come in now?
Anyone online?
Okay, Vicky.
Hi, thank you.
Hi. I would like the strategy to reflect the role of the voluntary and community sector.
I'm sure you've already thought about that.
I really like the emphasis on health inequalities and that you've actually named that mental health is related to deprivation.
So, I would like to see some kind of embedding of social welfare advice providers into this.
And you also talked about sharing insights.
So, I would like to think about the kind of structures there are in the voluntary community
sector for sharing and that kind of thing.
For example, the Children and Youth Forum.
And I can talk to you, Adam, about what those structures are.
Thank you.
Thank you Vicky, that would be great.
Definitely agree that would be great to see reflected in the strategy.
I suppose just to bring us back to some of the questions that are up now,
particularly the second one around that kind of leadership and oversight of the mental health strategy,
because I think there are a number of really great points here about how we can take the strategy forward,
But I think it's going to be hard to take the strategy forward at all if we don't have a little bit of that clarity
around
Where we think the sort of leadership and oversight of it should sit which and I I don't know
I know Georgia was present for the DMT
discussion, I don't know if there are elements of that that we want to kind of make sure are pulled out and considered here or whether
that conversation so far has covered off the basis that we want.
You are coming to?
Yes. We had a really helpful conversation around this at our Directorate Leadership Team
where we were thinking about the governance in relation to the strategy
about which is... because at the moment Carrie is online, isn't she?
Carrie, do you want to come in?
Because at the moment, is the mental health partnership,
is that right?
At the moment.
However, with the changes that are happening in the ICB,
we're not sure as to whether the partnership will
exist in its current form and whether the remit will change.
So the conversation we were having,
which I think may be a good conversation to just get
to the views of the board, is whether it might,
depending of course in terms of what happens with the ICB,
whether there may be a natural home for the strategy possibly here for the health and
well -being board to have oversight of.
Not sure, but it's something we never concluded it, but it was certainly something we discussed.
I can see Carrie's online, and I don't know if Carrie possibly wanted to come in on that,
because Carrie's been probably quite close to this and I think has a view.
Carrie?
Hi.
Thank you.
So, I think the question is, where does it best sit in order to deliver what will be,
as Shoma said, what will be quite significant priorities for the borough.
And the current Mental Health Partnership Board is really focused around two of the pillars in the current strategy.
And those really centre on the join up of health and social care and also public health.
So some of the preventative work, some of the addressing of some of the stigma associated with mental health issues,
some of the training to the broader workforce.
What we're likely to see, I think people have made the point as we've gone through, is that this is much more of a borough -wide approach to mental health.
And if we are looking at other partners such as housing and broader environmental issues, for example, then it probably is more of a health and wellbeing board agenda item.
talked about loneliness at the beginning as well. There's a lot of interrelationship with
some of the areas that naturally sit with the Health and Wellbeing Board. There may need to be,
as Adam said, some constitutional changes around the Mental Health Partnership Board. We don't know
that yet, all of us, including myself, going into an ICB restructure, but there may well need to be
some change. It is quite a small group, so it does feel like that this might naturally sit within the
and Wild Wing Board and it has in the past sat here with regular reporting then yeah
that's probably what I want to say at this point.
Okay thank you.
Yeah sorry I think there's probably quite a few things to sort out here because we've got
the borough level, you've got ICB, you've got borough, you've got neighbourhoods,
You've got integrated neighbourhood teams when we want to bring together GPs and the
East London Foundation Trust.
There's a lot of stuff to unpack here.
And then we're talking about the Mental Health Partnership, but we really, that is a good
partnership, but we need to think about what is, I think we need to have a kind of discussion
with them in the chair about where we want to go with this.
So it feels to me that we're in quite a complex place and we've got a lot of questions, but I'm really worried that we,
I'm just really concerned that this borough needs to have a really strong mental health strategy that drives innovation and involves the community.
I don't know what the best kind of come back in three months, have those discussions and
kind of have something that we can really engage with here.
I was going to say, Sean, I think we need to come back on this when there's more clarity,
especially about the ICB restructures. Neil, you want to comment?
Just to support that position, Chair, I think model neighbourhoods document is coming out
shortly, which will be the government description of what can and can't be done in integrated
neighbourhoods. We will then have an understanding about how we strategically commission the
services that we as a health and wellbeing board would want to see delivered. Taking
Adam's point, housing, loneliness, prevention, so much of that sits in the remit of this
board and we should respect and be really pleased by that. But we also need the second
which is mental health providers, primary care, voluntary sector, social prescribing,
all the vast strengths that Vicky's organisation would bring to bear into this space.
I think we're probably three to four months away from being able to refine this for you.
Very well said Neil. I definitely feel we can come back and we should.
and even three, four months, I don't know if we'll be in a better position, but yes,
those conversations need to come back and we really need to make sure that mental health
is like a key priority, we're not lost with all those changes and uncertainty.
Councillor Cabrillo.
Yes, sorry, just wanted to understand in terms of governance, is there a specific timeline
we need to work towards firstly and secondly if there isn't a timeline then
I would rather see a more informed and sort of robust approach to dealing with
the whole issue as opposed to kind of you know one glove fits all.
I don't think there is a timeline I think we've got a period where
documentation is going to be coming from the centre that will help us come to a conclusion.
But whatever we decide has to be right for Tower Hamlets and our residents.
I don't think we're going to get this is the only way you can do this, so we'll get the
flexibility to do what we need for Tower Hamlets residents.
And I think just following on from that, I think one of the real key milestones for the
system is the neighbourhood plan that we're going to need to develop.
So we are still waiting for the guidance around neighbourhoods and I think that will give
us a very strong steer around what we want our system to look like.
And those issues about fragmentation etc don't just apply to mental health, they apply to
the system.
So I think that's going to be really as a board where we're really going to need to
think about what does the guidance actually mean for Tower Hamlets.
and that we should, there's really no timelines particularly, but it's something that we need
to get right and there is a priority to get a neighbourhood plan out there from the ICB,
but actually it's kind of what is right for Tower Hamlets.
Thank you, so I think in terms of action plan, to come back to the board where we can have
have further discussion on the mental health strategy and we'd rather do it properly and
not just kind of like just for the sake of it because it's really increasing you know
mental health in the borough. Adam did you want to get in? No thank you that's a really helpful
steer and yeah makes makes sense to proceed when we know a little bit more about how we need to
So I can call this meeting has closed here.
Is there anything else?
I was just going to say, sorry, just one thing.
We were expecting the neighbourhood plan to come to a close.
come out by now. We expect it to come out by the next Health and Wellbeing Board. So
if that does come out, my proposal is that we spend a lot of time thinking about that.
That will be the basis of the next meeting.
Thank you, Shoman. I don't have any other business and I call the meeting to an end.
Thank you for everyone's contribution.