Issue - meetings

The Health and Wellbeing Board is asked to consider the 0-5 Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA). Authority is sought to publish the 0-5 JSNA and the development of an associated action plan that will be monitored by the JSNA Strategic Group.

Duncan Vernon, Public Health Consultant introduced the Children’s 0-5 Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA). It looked at the health needs of children aged 0-5 in Warwickshire and was aligned with ‘The Best Start for Life policy vision’ of 1,001 critical days for lifelong emotional and physical health, health needs during pregnancy and maternal health. Sections of the report focussed on:

• Local context, including the predicted population growth, ethnic diversity and impacts of deprivation.
• Health of children 0-5 – pregnancy and birth. This included parenting education, low birth weight and obesity, smoking in pregnancy and mental health data.
• Health of children 0-5 – early years. Improving data collection on breast feeding, data on childhood obesity, visually obvious tooth decay, vaccine coverage and issues associated with domestic abuse.
• Child hospitalisations. Findings from different waves of the pandemic, by area, gender, indices of deprivation and ethnicity. Further aspects on unintentional injuries, emergency admissions and reducing unintentional injuries, focussing on five key causes.
• Child deaths. This section covered key causes, the relationship to wider determinants of health and data on the 122 Warwickshire child deaths over the period 2017-21.
• Services for children 0-5. This reported on the proportion of new birth visits, infant reviews and the feedback from parents and carers of young children of the 0-5 public health nursing service. Further aspects on early education and childcare, school readiness and achieving a good level of development. There were known links between deprivation and school readiness. Reference to the WCC early years needs assessment, its data findings and those from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. This section also outlined the support from Children and Families Services, with data on specialist help, early intervention and outreach services.
• Report recommendations. Six areas were outlined. These concerned increasing population growth and increasing diversity of needs, that deprivation and inequalities were a critical factor and there were key health promotion issues for all services to embed. There were opportunities to increase the role of early intervention and prevention, a need for closer alignment between services and an opportunity to establish a partnership to centralise the needs of children and to take forward the recommendations within the report.
• JSNA prioritisation. A two-year thematic work programme had been developed and was set out in the report. Some aspects had been completed. With the wider development of the ICS, it was proposed to undertake a further prioritisation exercise and the suggested approach was outlined.

A presentation was provided to pull out the key aspects of the report, based on the sections detailed above. Questions and comments were invited, with responses provided as indicated:

• The Chair praised the report and the detailed data it contained.
• Concern about drowning risks increasing due to the reduction in numbers of children learning to swim. This had been impacted by both the pandemic and potentially pool closures associated with increasing costs of heating them. 
• The report contained a wealth of information. A concern that the gaps related to deprivation were widening. Points about the lack of a  ...  view the full minutes text for item 2