Supporting Children and Young People to Be Healthy

Date: 15th September 2009
Time: 2.30 – 4.30pm
Venue: Boardroom New Century House

Type of meeting: 13th

Attendees:

Julie Scrymgeour, CAMHS Service Manager, Pennine Care
Shelagh Walton, SCYP – Healthy Schools,
Rachel Connor, Branching Out,
Emma Barker, Tameside YOT
Debbie Bishop, Head of Health Improvement,
Gill Gibson, LSC, NHS T&G
Bev Connolly, Service Unit Manager - Children with Disabilities,
Sarah Babcock, Lead Nurse LAC,
Lilian Pons, WAC,
Ian Young, Off the Record,
Geraldine Haughton, Partnership Coordinator, PCT (Minutes)

1. Welcome and introductions

Ian Young was welcomed to the group and introductions were made around the table. Lillian was thanked for all her hard work and attendances over the last 18 months.

2. Apologies

Pat McKelvey, Paula Henson, Adrian Holt, Judith Grigg, Ann Okwei, Stephen McLaughlin, Alan Bailey, Mathew Benham.

3. Minutes of the Last Meeting

The minutes of the last meeting were agreed as a true and correct record.

Matters Arising
You’re Welcome
Tracy meeting with college students next week, attended training workshop this week. The vision for the longer term has moved on. Getting a mix of young people to undertake verification visits, setting up youth alliance with You’re Welcome being one strand of the group.

Youth on Line
Now got cross tabulation information regarding drugs/alcohol. This would be a large piece of work if taking further. Shelagh requested clarification of what was required if she is to carry on with this work.

4. Brought Forward Items

4.1 NI 199 – Play – a number of questions arose from the presentation:

How many play areas should we have for our population?
This has not been formally measured yet and we have not created a worthwhile tool to do this yet. We will be working with Play England and District Assemblies to gage this over the next year.

How do we compare with regard to number of play areas compared to our statistical neighbours?
We have significantly less than our statistical neighbours; this may be due to size or investment. More work needs to be conducted around this throughout the North West and more staff need to be employed by Tameside to manage more capacity regarding play areas and the development.

How is she linking to Parenting Programmes to support parents to be less risk adverse and allow their children to play out?
We have been working with and consulting local parents throughout this programme educating them on the benefits of play for them and their children. This is done through the Early Years Pathway and through the play builder programme. We are currently starting work with Lorraine Butler and are planning on running some activities on Play Day on the 9th August.

NI 126 – Access to Maternity
Clarification received from Gideon that revised template and process are in place so that the data collected is the 1st contact with the midwife rather than the date of the initial antenatal clinic appointment. Performance is expected to be well inside the required standard.

Judgement – heartening with qualifications. The group were pleased that processes have been put in place to support the ‘care closer to home’ agenda allowing women to access their midwife at a location convenient to them and for this to support achievement of the target. The group are keen to ensure that all women, including those in ‘hard to reach groups’ access maternity services and would like midwifery services to provide details of work they are undertaking in this area.

5. Looked After Children – Impact of Health Assessment

Sarah gave her presentation explaining the challenge of demonstrating evidence of the impact of the health assessments as data is very limited both locally and nationally. She provided the evidence she could muster from her own clinical practice with the Leaving Care cohort of young people - see attached.

A discussion ensued.

• 40% of young people leaving care smoked, this was felt to be very high
• Data – some agencies not prepared to give information, therefore data can be unreliable
• Until we understand issues cannot target
• Health issues should be addressed when coming into care – piece of work needed to ‘start the ball rolling’
• Suggested health care should form part of carers contract
• Young people declining services – is it down to the way services are perceived, they may want to see just one person for everything
• What happens beyond 18, when they don’t fall into children’s services – young people don’t look at the long term implications on health
• Accommodation – bad living conditions affects young persons outlook – not enough landlords willing to take on looked after children
• Issues around young people who fall through gap
• Suggested referral to health trainer at 18
• Role for health mentor for up to 16 (one stop shop)

It was agreed that a more robust approach was required to collecting data about the outcomes for children and young people following their health assessment. It was suggested that under the auspice of the group the LAC steering group be approached to see if this could be addressed in the future.

6. NST Visits

Debbie circulated her paper to the group and outlined the main points. See attached.

NHS Tameside and Glossop were visited at the end of March and the NST looked closely at the partnership, vision and strategy, leadership and engagement of the wider health partnerships. The NST looked specifically at six key areas where inequalities in health had been identified:

• Cardiovascular disease secondary prevention
• Acute management of heart attack and stroke
• Cancer
• Tobacco control (Tameside and Glossop in top 6%)
• Seasonal excess deaths
• Alcohol harm reduction

Debbie asked the group to note the recommendations.

7. LifeCheck

Debbie handed out the NHS LifeCheck Update which included the new look NHS Teen LifeCheck national launch information. The campaign is designed to highlight a question in the forefront of young people’s minds – am I normal? Young people in the 12 – 15 age group told researchers that they wanted to see images that they could relate to.

Areas covered:

Early years – babies and parents
Teen
Mid life

Tameside’s launch will be on the 27th January aimed at schools and youth service, and early years (developing locally in children’s centres).

‘Red’, a communications company is helping Tameside Council with the advertising campaign.

If you have any questions, please email Debbie. 

8. Choose Health Choose Life Handbook

Tracy informed the group that services were now requesting further copies of the booklet, therefore we need to establish if young people found the booklet useful. Shelagh said that teachers were willing to feedback, just needed to know what questions to ask..

It was suggested putting the booklet online, however it needed to be checked for accuracy, ensuring all contact details were up current as it was noted that the Springleigh telephone number was incorrect.

9. Any Other Business

C&YP Plan Refresh – Tracy asked if group members had received an email inviting services to input to the development of the next Children’s Plan. She said the group would be looking at a selection of the questions posed in the email at the next meeting. Ameena would be happy to receive individual service responses (even if you only answer one or two).

10. Date of Next Meeting

The date of the next meeting was agreed as 17th November, 2.30 – 4.30 in the Boardroom, New Century House, Denton.