Agenda item

To receive a report from the Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Strategic Commissioning and Public Health and the Director of Public Health, giving an overview of the Primary School Public Health (PSPHS) contract, including monitoring arrangements, performance outcomes and value for money. The committee is asked tocomment on and endorse progress made to transform services through an effective contract management approach and ongoing activities to deliver statutory obligations, continuous improvementand meet performance expectations.

Mrs V Tovey, Public Health Senior Commissioning Manager, and Ms S Bennett, Consultant in Public Health, were in attendance for this item.

1.                  Mrs Tovey and Ms Bennett introduced the report and responded to comments and questions from Members, including the following:-

a)       asked about the take-up of intervention plans, Mrs Tovey explained that any young person could request a lifestyle package of care and that the rate of take-up was currently about 10%, but she undertook to check this figure and advise Members outside the meeting;

b)      Mrs Tovey also undertook to give figures to Members about engagement between the Primary School Public Health (PSPH) service and children educated at home;

c)       every school had a named member of staff, not necessarily a school nurse but one of the school health team with relevant skills and training, who would offer a drop-in service and workshops;

d)      in the first year of the service, following the award of contract, the service had borne set-up costs, but these had now ended and the service could move ahead to achieve best value and start to achieve savings;

e)      Ms Bennett and Mrs Tovey advised that the needs of children would be identified via questionnaires and an assessment would then be made to identify the best sort of engagement for them. This assessment process was a new part of the plan;

f)        statutory parts of the service included the national child measurement programme (NCMP), and figures for the proportion of spend allocated to these aspects could be supplied to Members after the meeting; 

g)       NCMP checks would be followed by a proactive phone call from the school health team to the parent of any child who had shown up as being above a healthy weight for their age. Approximately 10% of parents responded to this call and took up the opportunity to engage with the PSPH service to address their child’s weight.  Approximately 10% of Year R children and 20% of Year 6 children were overweight.  Some parents took a while to accept that their child was overweight before accepting help from the service;

h)      asked what collaboration there was between the PSPH service and the North East London Foundation Trust, Ms Bennett explained that there was general partnership and close links between the PSPH and providers of the CAMH services in the south east, and the relationship between the two bodies was complex; and

i)        asked if future contract monitoring reports to the Cabinet Committee would include performance against targets, Mrs Tovey said that this would indeed become the case, as the service bedded in beyond its first year. The Cabinet Committee had only recently started its programme of regular contract monitoring.

2.            It was RESOLVED that:-

a)    the information set out in the report, and given in response to comments and questions, be noted; and

b)    the  progress made to transform services through an effective contract management approach, and the ongoing activities to deliver statutory obligations, continuous improvementand meet performance expectations, be endorsed.