Agenda item

This item provides an update on the Hammersmith & Fulham Health and Care Partnership, first established in 2016 to work with and for local residents to improve health, care and wellbeing outcomes.

Caroline Farrar (Managing Director of Hammersmith and Fulham Place Partnership) presented an update on the Hammersmith & Fulham Health and Care Partnership that worked with and for local residents to improve health, care and wellbeing outcomes.

Caroline Farrar spoke about the need to refresh the Partnership and develop better, more productive relationships within the health provider landscape which was quite fragmented at present.The ambition was to make it work more effectively for residents. She noted the key issues for H&F that were highlighted in the Shared Needs Assessment from September 2024:

• The borough had the lowest three year life expectancy at birth for 2020-22 in North West London.
• 18% of the population were in the Core 20 most deprived areas, the third highest level in North West London.
• Older adults had a higher risk of physical inactivity, smoking, and substance abuse that the North West London average.
• There were higher levels of anxiety and depression among adults.

As part of the refresh, a new Place Partnership Managing Director role had been created as a dedicated partnership post for the first time in Hammersmith and Fulham. A review had been conducted into how the partnership operates, including its workstreams and governance. Partners fed back that there was more work to do on developing the collective sense of purpose and ambition within the partnership, and greater clarity was needed on what it was trying to achieve through working together. There was also clear feedback that the workstreams and governance were not as effective as they could be and needed to be refreshed. All strategic partners have signed up to a refreshed purpose statement and new

governance structure. Conversations are ongoing to agree priorities and workstreams, taking into account feedback from frontline staff and residents in this process.

Councillor Amanda Lloyd-Harris noted the issues in the report were weighted towards the north of borough but the centre and south also had significant issues. She said the Council had invested a lot of resources into the north but it had not produced the outcomes hoped for. She asked why that was and what could be done better. Caroline Farrar agreed there were issues across the borough and the Partnership was developing workstreams covering every area. She added that addressing inequalities was a harder challenge. There were wider determinants that needed a concerted effort across many areas such as the economy, housing, and child development. The Partnership was keen to work together in those areas and that would form part of the plan.

Dr Nicola Lang (Director of Public Health) reassured members that the south of the borough was not forgotten and gave the example of a recent project to secure funding for additional health workers in Lillie ward, one of the most deprived. The Council also focussed a lot on improving housing, employment opportunities, the environment, and green spaces in those areas.

Jim Grealy thanked the Partnership for their report. He felt a deprivation map of the borough would be useful and that recognition of where poverty was would help organisations address it. He asked how the Partnership was listening to residents and ensuring people had their voices heard in relation to the workstreams being developed. Caroline Farrar said deprivation maps were available. Regarding public feedback, she said the Partnership had lots of engagement and insight gathering work they could draw on. Part of the next stage of developing the workstreams would be how to develop the co-production aspect. She noted that an outline plan would be presented to Health & Wellbeing Board in December.

Lucia Boddington, referring to the figures on page 19, noted that a number of indicators were red including life expectancy, rates of sexually transmitted diseases, and suicides. She asked if there was demographic data available on these and whether the trends had worsened since 2020. Dr Nicola Lang said many of these trends were national. The Partnership and the Council were committed to addressing these issues with robust public health measures. Caroline Farrar noted that life expectancy had dipped everywhere due to the pandemic effect, but the comparative level was most interesting to the Partnership.

Councillor Lloyd-Harris said she would like to see how the Partnership planned to respond to these statistics. Caroline Farrar said the plan would be going to Health & Wellbeing Board in December. But she noted that the Partnership could not address all of the issues – their goal was to seek to improve the overall outcomes. Councillor Lloyd-Harris said they could give a sense of what types of interventions were being put in place so members could judge if there were any obvious omissions. Councillor Alex Sanderson (Deputy Leader, acting Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Health) reassured members that there were plans in place to address these issues through different bodies.

Jim Grealy noted the discrepancy between the statistics for younger people and older people and how, in comparison with poorer boroughs, H&F was doing worse. He highlighted falls for older people being higher than others and wanted to be able to see how that fed into a strategy to address the issue.

Jacqui McShannon (Executive Director – People) said the health economy was complex, with lots of different strategies and action plans. North West London had its own priorities, there was the Health and Wellbeing Strategy, in addition to the Partnership and its work. She suggested identifying key themes and bringing back items on those themes. The Chair agreed that members and officers work together to develop a thematic approach for scrutiny to ensure the Committee had the right information available and the right people to contribute to the discussion.

ACTION: Cllr Perez / Jacqui McShannon

Councillor Apthorp asked for more information on the key issues faced by partners. Caroline Farrar said the key issue was that services were not integrated so health professionals spent time linking up. For example, there were three dementia pathways. The borough was covered by multiple hospitals that all did things differently. That needed to be addressed.

The Chair thanked Caroline Farrar for the update and the Committee looked forward to further updates on the Partnership’s work at future meetings.

RESOLVED

1. That the Health and Adult Social Care Policy and Accountability noted and commented on the report.