This meeting of the Joint Health Overview & Scrutiny Committee was scheduled to include a verbal update on preparedness for winter pressures across Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin.

The Committee was also scheduled to receive a report from the Shropshire Health & Overview Scrutiny Committee on how to ensure health and care strategies, plans and policies take rurality into account. The report contains fourteen recommendations, including that the Integrated Care Board should carry out a full review of travel and transport infrastructure supporting the health and care system in Shropshire. The report also recommends that all parts of the local health and care system should use the National Centre for Rural Health and Care's Rural Proofing for Health Toolkit .

The Group were very pleased to learn that the Rural Proofing for Health Toolkit had been recommended for use within the Integrated Care System (ICS) by Simon Whitehouse (Chief Executive Officer for Shrewsbury Telford and Wrekin Integrated Care Board) and Cllr Cecelia Motley (in her role as Co-Chair of the Health and Wellbeing Board.) The Group recommends that the Toolkit be fully adopted into the Integrated Impact Assessment process of the ICS and all organisations whom it commissions and should be accepted as a mandatory document to be completed when making changes to or introducing a new strategy or plan making process, so it can inform thinking from the outset. The report goes on to suggest that the toolkit could also be used by similar committees at Telford and Wrekin Council, the Shropshire Association of Local Councils, and the Marches Forward Partnership.

The committee was scheduled to discuss the recommendations from the report and decide whether to endorse them.

The meeting was also scheduled to receive an update from its Co-Chairs.

The papers for the meeting also included the minutes of the previous meeting of the Committee, which was held on 24 October 2023. The minutes record that the previous meeting included a discussion about the performance of the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust.

The Committee asked questions under the following headings: Quality Improvement and CQC Rating Performance Service Development Questions for Integrated Care Board The minutes go on to record that the Trust responded to questions on a range of topics, including its CQC rating, the support it receives from University Hospitals Birmingham, its cancer performance and its organisational culture. The minutes then record the committee's discussion of the Trust's performance, noting that they intend to work with the Trust to understand the reasons why a consistently high number of patients remain in hospital who do not meet the criteria to reside there. The minutes note that the Committee intends to work with both Telford and Wrekin Council, and Shropshire Council on the issue.