Agenda item

To receive the report from the Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Public Health and the Acting Director of Public Health and to comment on the proposed new service model

1.            Mr Scott-Clark introduced the item and explained that the Committee’s comments were being sought on the change to the policy prior to a formal decision being taken in the future. He responded to comments and questions from Members, as follows:-

a)    Mr Scott-Clark had recently met with the Cabinet Member for Education and Health Reform to address the issue of providing a consistent school nurse service in special schools;

b)    support at schools for young people with mental health problems was a priority issue, and school nurses were an important part of the support available for children with these issues.  A summit taking place on 9 July would discuss this issue and the importance of getting the service right.  Mr Scott-Clark undertook to give the questioner more detail on this issue outside the meeting;

c)    the school nursing service should be given as high a priority as possible, and social media could be used to tell students about the service. The Chairman added that she had raised this issue at a local meeting of the Youth Council.  Mr Scott-Clark added that the profile of the service had not been helped by the shortage of nurses and had been further exacerbated by recent focus on the health visitor service, which had drawn some school nurses to change career to become health visitors.  What was needed now was to stimulate an increase in school nurse recruitment.  The Chairman added that this could be partly taken forward with the Education and Young People’s Services Cabinet Committee;

d)    children were not smoking and drinking as much as had previously been the case but the problem of childhood obesity had now taken over from this as a priority concern. Inconsistent government messages had not been helpful, for example about fruit juice being one of the recommended five portions a day of fruit and vegetables but then being highlighted as containing unhealthy levels of sugar.  Mr Scott-Clark explained that the Healthy Schools Programme and the Olympic legacy sought to address childhood obesity by encouraging increased physical activity, but there had been too much focus on diet and not enough on exercise. An integrated approach by the school nursing service and the Healthy Schools Initiative would seek to improve the approach to these issues.  School nurses had traditionally not liaised with GPs but the new model for school public health would make it clear that this was necessary; and

e)    the issues above were related to the Health and Wellbeing Strategy, which was reported elsewhere on this agenda.  Parental guidance and behaviour was a great influence on children’s behaviour, for example, 90% of children who started to smoke lived in households containing a smoker.

2.            The Cabinet Member, Mr Gibbens, thanked Members for their comments and undertook to take account of them when he came to take the decision to approve the new model later in the year.  He also undertook to take forward with the Cabinet Member for Education and Health Reform the issues which had been raised about areas of joint working between social care and education and with the Cabinet Member for Specialist Children’s Services issues around transition from children’s to adult services.

3.            RESOLVED that the Cabinet Committee’s comments on the proposed new service model be noted.