Minutes:
(a) At the beginning of May 2022 Mrs Cole, Mr Meade and Mrs Bell had visited the Harmonia Dementia Village in Dover which offered homes for up to 30 people living with dementia. It was said that, based on a concept originating in the Netherlands, the six houses in the village were designed to look and feel like everyday homes. The design model was intended to promote the independence of the residents and to remove stigma around those living with dementia. The village had an onsite team of carers and nurses who were available 24 hours a day, daily activities, a hub for residents and guest rooms for overnight stays. In November 2021 the Harmonia Village won the 2020 award for Best Dementia Care Development at the Building Better Health Care Awards.
(b) Mental Health Awareness week, highlighting loneliness, had taken place in the week commencing 9th May 2022. Mrs Bell said that community support services, Live Well Kent and Kent Sheds had reminded residents of the help available. Activities had taken place both online and in person at various locations across the county. Members and the public were reminded that further information about support services was available online at: https://www.kent.gov.uk/social-care-and-health/health/one-you-kent/every-mind-matters.
(c) Mr Jordan Meade, Deputy Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care, had visited Faversham’s Men’s Shed Project on Friday 13 May 2022. He said he was impressed by the significant partnership working within the community to deliver social prescribing and peer-to-peer support. Mr Meade congratulated the staff on their adaptation and resilience over the COVID-19 pandemic.
(d) Mr Kennedy said he had visited Woodwork for Wellbeing in his capacity as mental health champion. The project provided a safe creative space for people to participate in woodwork activities and aimed to improve mental health and wellbeing and reduce isolation. It was said that the work produced through the project was sold to raise money for the charity. Mr Kennedy also drew attention to the significant work undertaken by Communigrow who offered gardening and outdoor activities for those faced with mental health challenges to support community resilience.
(a) Members were told that Public Health were cautiously removing the infrastructure that had been set up to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. Going forward, the intention was to treat COVID-19 as another infectious respiratory disease. There was limited data available due to the discontinuation of universal testing. However, the Public Health response was based on triangulation of data including that provided by the ONS survey, local hospitalisation rates and information on outbreaks. Case rates were consistently higher in older residents. However, care homes cases and hospital admissions were on a downwards trend and case rates overall had reduced by half over the two weeks prior. The dominant strain was said to be the BA.2 variant in Kent, although there were continuous mutations of the virus.
In response to questions from Members it was said:
i. COVID-19 rates in people aged over 75 remained higher due to their vulnerability. Comorbidity - the simultaneous presence of two or more diseases or medical conditions in a patient - in many older patients was associated with slower recovery rates within this age category.
ii. The stockpile of testing kits was being made available to nationally recognised KCC key workers and to a small group of key workers that were not covered by the national guidance. It was anticipated that the surplus stock would be depleted by the end of June 2022.
iii. Long COVID-19 figures would be provided to the Committee Members outside of the formal meeting. A report on Long COVID-19 could be brought back to the Committee at a later date once research had been conducted at the national level.
(b) Dr Ghosh said that Public Health were in the process of developing a five-year system-wide Public Health strategy for Kent which would set out the strategic priorities for Public Health. It was anticipated that this would act as the Health and Wellbeing strategy for Kent and would form significant part of the Integrated Care Strategy. It was said that one of the key focus areas was the tackling of health inequalities, of which 80% were structural in nature. Members were told that a system-wide commitment to ambitious, large-scale agendas would be required to address these inequities.
The development of the strategy was taking place in three parts: a policy research piece, a COVID-19 impact assessment, and research to understand the experience of the lived community. In the meantime, Dr Ghosh said he was also hoping to work with the four Health and Care Social Partnerships under the Integrated Care Strategy to develop trial interventions.
In response to questions from Members it was said that the strategy would take the national NHS England and NHS Improvement Core20PLUS5 approach to reducing health inequalities. The approach defines a target population cohort – the most deprived 20% of the national population – and five clinical areas requiring accelerated improvement. The Kent strategy would also include the consideration of additional areas such as addiction and obesity.