The Southampton City Council Health Overview and Scrutiny Panel met on 28 August 2025 to discuss updates on the NHS 10 Year Plan, the draft Southampton City Council Housing Strategy 2026-2031, and adult social care performance in the city. The panel reviewed and provided feedback on the draft housing strategy, focusing on the incorporation of health and wellbeing considerations. They also scrutinised the performance of adult social care services and preparations for the upcoming Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection¹.

Draft Southampton City Council Housing Strategy 2026-2031

The panel reviewed and commented on the draft Southampton City Council Housing Strategy 2026-2031 as part of the public consultation process, which launched on 28 July 2025 and is due to close on 21 September 2025. The strategy, presented by Councillor Frampton, Cabinet Member for Housing, focuses on:

• Improving landlord services
• Increasing the number of quality homes in the city
• Supporting strong and resilient communities

The panel was asked to consider whether a Health in All Policies (HiAP) approach had been applied to the draft strategy. The draft strategy aims to create a thriving, inclusive community where everyone has access to safe, affordable, healthy, and sustainable housing.

The strategy recognises that housing is a determinant of health outcomes, and the panel was asked to reflect on whether a HiAP approach has been applied to the draft strategy. HiAP is described in the Adult Social Care Performance report as:

a collaborative approach to improving the health of all people by incorporating health considerations into decision making across sectors, policy and service areas, and addressing the wider determinants of health.

The report also notes that these wider determinants of health are the non-medical factors that affect our health and wellbeing, often referred to as 'social determinants' or the 'building blocks' of health, and include factors such as education, skills and employment, housing, the built environment and income.

The panel was informed that the current housing strategy was agreed in 2016 and is due to end in 2026.

Adult Social Care Update

The panel received an update on the performance of Adult Social Care in Southampton, as detailed in the Adult Social Care Performance report, and considered preparations for the upcoming CQC inspection. The CQC inspection is scheduled to commence on 29 September 2025.

The report provided details on the performance of Adult Social Care Services and the required context. It also included details on the CQC inspection process, timelines, and the Adult Social Care Improvement Plan.

The panel were informed that Newton, a consultancy, had concluded their partnership work with Adult Social Care, leaving new reporting methods, and that operational teams are now more routinely accessing and using data.

The Adult Social Care Performance presentation included the following points:

• The Adult Social Care strategy vision and four ambitions
• An overview of service performance, focusing on ongoing transformation programmes
• An introduction to the suite of management information for high-level performance summaries of service areas

NHS 10 Year Plan and NHS Changes

The panel received an update on national and local developments in the NHS, following the publication of the 10 Year Health Plan and announcements on the new roles of Integrated Care Boards (ICBs). The report, NHS 10 Year Plan and NHS Changes, provided the panel with briefing papers and updates on the following:

• 10 Year Health Plan update (NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight)
• Fit for the future: 10 Year Health Plan for England - executive summary (Department of Health and Social Care)
• Changes to Integrated Care Boards (NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight)

The NHS published its new Ten Year Health Plan in July 2025, shaped by the experiences and expectations of members of the public, patients, partners and the health and care workforce across the country, reflecting the changes that people wanted to see.

Key to the delivery of the ambitions of the 10 Year Health Plan is the creation of Neighbourhood Health, which are multidisciplinary, community-based teams and services designed to meet a broader range of health and care needs of local populations.

Since Spring 2025, detailed discussions have been held on the most appropriate configuration of ICBs across the region and potential changes to organisational boundaries this may involve. For NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight, this means changing boundaries to become coterminous with the new Hampshire and the Solent combined authority.