The agenda for the meeting includes discussions on the Adult Social Care (ASC) CQC Inspection and an update on the Mental Health Promotion Strategy.

Adult Social Care CQC Inspection Preparation

The committee will receive an update on ASC’s preparation for its upcoming inspection by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).¹ The report pack notes that:

“CQC are clear that they give equal weight to the feedback they receive, from the DASS [Director of Adult Social Services] to residents, from providers to front-line practitioners.”

The report pack also includes information on the current waiting lists for various Adult Social Care services. These waiting lists are separated into nine categories and include lists for Occupational Therapy, Home Adaptations, Annual Reviews, Carers Reviews, Financial Assessments, Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS), Safeguarding, the provision of community equipment, and initial assessments. For initial assessments, the report states that:

“Local performance has been consistently good and significantly better than neighbouring authorities.”

Mental Health Promotion

The committee will discuss an update report on the Waltham Forest Mental Health Promotion Strategy 2023-26. The report notes that in 2019:

“depression alone was the third biggest cause of disability, costing over £100 billion a year in England.”

The committee will also discuss progress on the four themes of the strategy, which are tackling stigma and discrimination around mental health, tackling the social, economic, and environmental circumstances which harm mental wellbeing, promoting self-help approaches to improving mental wellbeing, and early intervention and prevention of mental health problems.

The report notes that a recent resident health survey found that:

“only around 10% of the population were aware of the 5 Ways to Wellbeing campaign”.

The report also discusses the Marmot report,² published in late 2022, and its recommendation to work towards a whole systems approach to tackling the mental health of Black boys and young men in Waltham Forest. Five key areas of focus have been identified for improving the mental health of Black boys and young men in the borough; experiences of education and school exclusions, support for parenting and families, mentoring and role models, equity of access to, and quality of mental health services, and targeted prevention.