Councillor Anne-Marie Sonko, Portfolio Holder for Adult Social Care and Health, chaired the Health and Wellbeing Board meeting, which included discussions on system discharge pathways, the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA), and the development of the Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2026-31. The board also received updates on the Warwickshire Safeguarding Adults Board and the Warwickshire Safeguarding Children's Partnership, as well as the Health and Wellbeing Board Executive Group. The board agreed to support public engagement for the Health and Wellbeing Strategy and endorsed the direction of travel for the JSNA work programme.

System Discharge Pathways

Laura Nelson, Chief Integration Officer for Warwickshire at the Integrated Care Board, and Zoe Mayhew, Director of Social Care and Health Commissioning for the Council, gave a presentation on system discharge pathways across Coventry and Warwickshire.

Ms Mayhew outlined the different types of services available to support patients being discharged from hospital, including:

• The Community Recovery Service (CRS), which provides therapy and domiciliary care in a patient's home.
• Reablement services, which help people regain skills and confidence, with most individuals not needing ongoing care after receiving this support.
• Hospital social prescribing, provided by Age UK, which signposts patients to appropriate community services.
• The Hospital to Home service, provided by the fire service, which discharges patients and conducts a safe and well check.
• A Community Response Team, provided by SWIFT, which gives short-term nurse-led support.

Ms Nelson then discussed ongoing work and future opportunities, including a pilot in Warwickshire North involving 10 beds in a care home setting to support patients with real health needs being discharged from George Eliot Hospital. She also spoke about the Community Integrator offer, delivered by South Warwickshire Foundation Trust, which focuses on community services, commissioning, and convening partners.

The presentation also covered the development of neighbourhood health models across Warwickshire, with Healthwatch leading on engagement to understand what neighbourhood health means to local populations.

Councillor Brady Hughes asked about the timeframe for domiciliary care packages following discharge, to which Ms Mayhew responded that it was around 48 hours on average. Councillor Brady Hughes also questioned whether the hospital to home service provided by the fire service was the best use of resources, given recent cuts to the fire service. Ms Nelson responded that this was being considered as part of a patient transport service review.

Councillor Maggie O'Rourke asked if all the services were available to all Warwickshire patients, and Ms Mayhew confirmed that they were.

Councillor Jerry Roodhouse raised concerns about the future funding for CRS and moving on beds, particularly with the challenges of no inflation increases. Ms Mayhew acknowledged that the Better Care Fund funding was challenging as it was set annually, but that the focus was on shifting care out of the acute setting and into the community.

Duncan Vernon explained that a population health management approach allows the council to look at the needs of the population and the best use of associated funding. He said that taking a population health management approach would enable the council to use a linked data set to consider the needs of the whole population, understand inequalities, and intervene in a more cost-effective and targeted way.

Becky Hale clarified that all the services were currently supported through the Better Care Fund, and that the Warwickshire Care Collaborative would need to consider capacity decisions in the future.

Councillor Margaret Bell asked about progress on having a single version of the truth about how many people were waiting to be discharged, and Ms Nelson responded that there was now a Coventry and Warwickshire-wide discharge dashboard.

Joint Strategic Needs Assessment Work Programme

Duncan Vernon provided an update on the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment work programme, explaining that the JSNA is a statutory duty of the Health and Wellbeing Board to analyse the current and future health and well-being needs of the population.

Mr Vernon noted that historically, the JSNA had been through several iterations, including place-based needs assessments and thematic needs assessments. Recent thematic needs assessments included Adults with Learning Disability JSNA, Empowering Futures, and a healthy ageing JSNA.

Mr Vernon said that the JSNA had played an important role in feeding into the health and wellbeing strategy, and that a programme of work had been carried out to understand the impact of the JSNA and how people were using it.

Mr Vernon then discussed the future JSNA programme, which includes developing a series of interactive dashboards looking at child health, the health of working age adults, and an older adults dashboard. He said that these dashboards would be drawing on live data sets and producing analysis on the smallest geography possible.

Mr Vernon also mentioned that there were two other needs assessments that were yet to be brought back to the board, one on the health and wellbeing of people of LGBTQ plus, and the pharmaceutical needs assessments, which the board has a duty to publish by 1 October.

Councillor Maggie O'Rourke thanked Mr Vernon and his team for their work, and Councillor Bell asked how granular the data could be and still be valid. Mr Vernon responded that it depended on the data, but that some things could be produced at relatively small levels based on census data.

The board was asked to note its role and responsibility in relation to the JSNA, encourage member organisations to make use of the JSNA, consider the existing work programme, and endorse the direction of travel for the current JSNA work programme.

Warwickshire Safeguarding Boards

Amrita Sharma, business manager for Warwickshire Safeguarding Adults Board, provided an overview of the resetting of the safeguarding partnership boards in Warwickshire. She explained that the Warwickshire Safeguarding Adults Board is established under the Care Act 2014, and its purpose is to ensure the effectiveness of safeguarding arrangements to protect adults who may have needs for care and support or who may be at risk of abuse or neglect.

Ms Sharma said that the safeguarding partnership was previously an overarching arrangement for children and adults, but the new statutory guidance for children's safeguarding partnerships triggered the uncoupling of that arrangement. She said that the safeguarding adults board has now agreed its strategic plan and has agreed upon three strategic priorities: improving community awareness, ensuring an informed and confident workforce, and working with adults to ensure their voice is central to decisions and outcomes.

Councillor Liz Coles asked about communication between services, given the separation of the adult and children's safeguarding boards. Ms Sharma responded that most of the safeguarding partners service both children and adults, which ensures continuity of information sharing.

Ramandeep Sandhu, business manager for the safeguarding children's partnership, provided an overview of the changes to the safeguarding children's partnership. She explained that the main reason for the change was the updated statutory guidance in relation to working together 23, which added some additional areas for the children's partnership to consider.

Ms Sandhu said that the lead safeguarding partners are the local authority, Warwickshire Police, and the integrated care board, and that education has been formally recognised within the structures as well. She said that the strategic priorities are around protecting children from harm and neglect, making a difference to children and families, and ensuring that children are visible within the community.

Councillor Jerry Roodhouse made comments on both the children's and adults' safeguarding boards, saying that neglect has been increasing over the last few years and that it was great to see it within the strategic elements. He asked how this could be turned into greater awareness.

Chris Bain asked about individuals who transition from one set of arrangements to another, and Ms Sharma responded that the children's social care setting and the adult social care setting have a transitions team that monitors those that may be care leavers that are transitioning into adult life and may have continue to have needs for care and support.

The board agreed the recommendations from both the adults and the children's safeguarding boards.

Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2026-31

Shade Agboola provided a verbal update on the development of the Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2026-31, noting that the current strategy runs out in 2026. She said that the draft strategy has been informed by the thematic JSNAs and that the guiding principles for strategy development were agreed by the Health and Wellbeing Board and the Health and Wellbeing Board Executive Group in January 2025.

Ms Agboola said that the strategy would be strengthened by the role of the three-place-place partnerships and would focus more on the building blocks of health, prevention of ill health, and reducing health inequalities. She said that the intention was to develop a strategy that is fully owned by all partners of the Health and Wellbeing Board and that focuses on the intended impact and outcomes from the outset.

Ms Agboola said that public involvement would be carried out through engagement between 15 August and 21 September, and that this would include an Ask Warwickshire survey to the general public and targeted communications with specific populations identified through priority setting.

Councillor Jerry Roodhouse asked how the strategy would take account of the 10-year plan that has just been released, the Dash review, and certain other stuff that is now coming out. Ms Agboola responded that the strategy is meant to be a dynamic document and that it would be able to adapt and change as things evolve.

The board agreed to commit to supporting with the public engagement of this strategy by circulating the survey throughout their networks.

The board was asked to receive the update on the development of the Health and Wellbeing Strategy and note the updated time frames and engagement plans.

Updates to the Board

The board took the updates to the board as read. These included:

• Health and Wellbeing Board Executive Group Update
• HWBB Development Session 12th March
• Minutes of the HWBB Sub-Committee

Forward Plan

The board noted the forward plan and that the next Health and Wellbeing Board would be a development session on 24 July, focusing on the draft Health and Wellbeing Strategy for 2026 to 2031.