The Wiltshire Council Health and Wellbeing Board meeting on 12 June 2025, was scheduled to cover a range of topics, including a draft pharmaceutical needs assessment, the Smokefree Generation Programme, the Get Britain Working white paper, and the Better Care Fund. The meeting also included verbal updates on changes in the NHS and the Better Care Plan.

Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment

The Health and Wellbeing Board were scheduled to discuss a draft Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment (PNA) for Wiltshire, and whether to proceed to a statutory consultation on it.

The PNA is required by the Health and Social Care Act 2012 to be updated every three years, and is described in the report pack as:

a key tool for identifying what is needed at a local level – supporting the commissioning intentions for pharmaceutical services and forming the basis for the NHS in determining market entry to the pharmaceutical list.

The draft PNA was signed off by a steering group in May 2025, and drew on nearly 1500 responses to a public survey, a survey of providers, and analysis from the council's public health team.

The report pack states that since the last PNA was published, there have been a range of changes to pharmaceutical provision within Wiltshire. As of June 2025, there were 62 community pharmacies and 20 dispensing GPs in the county, with an average of 1.2 pharmacies per 10,000 population, which is lower than regional and national averages.

The report pack identifies that additional pharmacies have recently been approved for opening in Warminster and Corsham and these need to be provided in order to meet a current need in terms of access. It also notes that one locality, Westbury, lacks access to services on a Saturday and providing this would represent an improvement.

Smokefree Generation Programme

The Health and Wellbeing Board were scheduled to receive an update on the delivery of the Smokefree Generation Programme in Wiltshire. The Public Health team are leading a collaborative approach in Wiltshire to achieve a Smokefree Generation of 5% smoking prevalence or less by 2029.

The report pack notes that smoking and tobacco use remains the leading preventable cause of ill health, death, disability, and social inequality in England and Wiltshire, and that in Wiltshire:

• 10.6% of adult Wiltshire residents smoked and this figure remains much higher among under-served populations.
• 500 deaths annually are attributed to smoking.
• For every smoker who dies, another 30 suffer from serious smoking-related diseases.
• 780 children start smoking every year.

The report pack also states that Wiltshire's Tobacco Control Alliance has been established since October 2023, chaired by Public Health, to work collaboratively to decrease smoking prevalence in Wiltshire and reduce the gaps in health inequalities of smoking prevalence.

Get Britain Working

The Health and Wellbeing Board were scheduled to receive a report and presentation on the Government White Paper – Get Britain Working.

The white paper sets out the government's long-term ambition to achieve an 80% employment rate. The report pack states that the UK is the only major economy that has seen its employment rate fall over the last 5 years, and that the white paper sets out fundamental reforms to tackle 6 key issues:

• too many people are excluded from the labour market
• too many young people leave school without essential skills
• too many people are stuck in insecure, poor quality and often low-paying work
• too many women who care for their families still experience challenges staying in and progressing in work
• too many employers cannot fill their vacancies due to labour and skills shortages
• there is too great a disparity in labour market outcomes between different places and for different groups of people

Better Care Fund

The Health and Wellbeing Board were scheduled to receive an update on developments relating to the implementation of the Better Care Plan¹.

The report pack included an overview of Wiltshire's Better Care Fund (BCF) performance for Quarter 4 (January–March 2025), summarising key achievements, challenges, and outcomes for the 2024–25 financial year. It noted that Wiltshire has performed well against key BCF metrics including:

• Target met on unplanned hospitalisation avoidable admissions.
• Target met on discharge to normal place of residence
• Falls target met

The report pack also included the 25/26 BCF Narrative Plan for approval, stating that the 2025/2026 Wiltshire Better Care Fund Plan specifically focusses on:

• Investing in prevention and admission avoidance
• Reducing inequalities through reinforcing community partnerships
• Maintaining effective discharge, interim care and reablement
• Enhancing care and supporting independence through improving access to digital and TEC solutions
• Continuing to develop the assessments and access to information, advice and support for unpaid carers