This meeting of the Health and Wellbeing Board was scheduled to include updates on a number of ongoing public health matters, a report on funding for the integration of local authority and NHS services, a proposal to update the Board’s constitution, and a presentation on North Central London Integrated Care Board’s plan to implement its Population Health and Care Strategy.

The most significant item on the agenda was scheduled to be a report on the Better Care Fund (Cover Report - Better Care Fund 2024-25 Update), a national scheme that aims to improve the integration of health and social care. The report included a proposal for how the £44m allocated to Camden for 2024-25 would be spent. This is £3,685,253 (8.4%) more than was allocated in 2023-24, with a 96.4% increase in the budget for “ICB Discharge Funding”, and a 66.7% increase in the “Local Authority Discharge Funding” budget. The report also contained proposed targets for four key performance indicators that measure the effectiveness of the integrated health and care system: the percentage of people discharged from hospital to their usual residence; the rate of avoidable hospital admissions; the number of permanent care home admissions; and the rate of hospital admissions following a fall. The report identified that there had been difficulties agreeing the Better Care Fund plan with the five North Central London local authorities, and that the submission of the plan to NHS England had been delayed as a result.

Another key item on the agenda was a report about Good Work and Employment (Cover Report - Good Work Employment). This is one of three short term priorities identified in the Camden Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2022-30¹, and the report included a review of progress on this priority since it was last discussed at the Board in September 2023. The report reviewed progress in taking a ‘population health approach’² to addressing health inequalities related to employment. In particular, the report identified long-term health conditions and learning disabilities as specific areas that needed to be addressed. The report also included an update on the work of Good Work Camden, a council employment support service that provides advice, training, and job brokerage services to Camden residents. The report noted that a Disability Job Hub was commissioned in April 2023, and that it had supported 75 Camden residents with disabilities, 8 of whom had found paid employment. The report also highlighted the Workwell and Universal Support programmes, which are regional schemes designed to support disabled people and people with health conditions to find and retain employment. The report noted that the NCL Integrated Care Board had coordinated a successful bid to be a Workwell Vanguard pilot, and that the programme was scheduled to commence in October 2024.

A Health Protection Update (Cover Report - Health Protection Update) was also scheduled to be discussed. This included information about the epidemiology of several communicable diseases and the work being undertaken to prevent their spread. The report included information about the ongoing national incident relating to measles, which was declared by the UK Health Security Agency on 8 January 2024. The report highlighted that the national increase in measles cases was initially driven by an outbreak in Birmingham, and that it had subsequently spread to London. The report noted that there had been two school outbreaks in Camden and a total of 18 confirmed cases of measles in the borough in 2024. The report also contained information about increases in pertussis, which is also known as whooping cough. Pertussis is a bacterial infection that causes severe coughing, and it can be particularly dangerous for babies. The report noted that the number of cases in the second quarter of 2024 was higher than at any point during the last major outbreak in 2012. The report also contained information about the mpox virus. Mpox, which was previously known as monkeypox, is a viral illness that can cause painful skin lesions and lead to serious illness. The report described how the current outbreak is being driven by a new variant of the virus, which was first identified in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The report highlighted that the World Health Organization has declared this outbreak a public health emergency of international concern because the variant has a higher fatality rate than other mpox variants, and because there is limited information about its transmissibility, routes of transmission and disease severity. The report explained how the overall risk assessment for the UK is low and that new guidance for GPs and the NHS 111 service would be published shortly.

Also included in the agenda was a report entitled System Transformation: NCL Population Health and Care Strategy (Cover Report - NCL Population Health and Care Strategy). This included a presentation by Sarah Mansuralli, Chief Strategy and Population Health Officer at the North Central London Integrated Care Board. The presentation was scheduled to include an overview of the Integrated Care Board’s progress on implementing its Population Health and Care Strategy. This strategy, which was endorsed by partners in April 2023, aims to tackle health inequalities by promoting early intervention, prevention and proactive care. The presentation also included information about the Integrated Care Board’s Delivery Plan, which sets out the organisation’s priorities for the next 18 months. These include finalising proposals for maternity and neonatal services, improving support for care leavers, reducing waiting times for therapies and neurodevelopmental assessments, increasing routine childhood vaccination uptake, improving access to emotional, psychological, and physical health and wellbeing support for care leavers, and developing a common language and training approach to support families across the Integrated Care System.

Finally, a report on proposed changes to the Board’s Terms of Reference (Cover Report - Update to Terms of Reference) was scheduled to be discussed. The report included two proposals, the first of which was to remove the restriction that the meeting must be chaired by the Leader of the Council or, in their absence, another Councillor appointed for the duration of the meeting. The report proposed replacing this restriction with a provision that allows the Board to elect a Chair from amongst its membership to serve for a full year. The second proposal was to update the wording of a reference to a Citizen’s Assembly that had taken place since the Terms of Reference were adopted.