Agenda item

To consider the attached report.

5.1       Members were reminded that the Health and Care Act required all local authorities to set up an Integrated Care Partnership (ICP) as a joint committee with the Integrated Care Board (ICB). For Gloucestershire, the Terms of Reference for the Gloucestershire Health and Wellbeing Partnership (GHWP) were agreed at full Council on the 9 November 2022.

5.2       The new Partnership had a distinct but complimentary role to the Health and Wellbeing Board (HWBB) that already existed as a council committee. The HWBB provided a forum where political, clinical, professional and community leaders from across the health and social care system came together to improve the health and wellbeing of the local population, and work to reduce inequalities. The new ICP had a statutory duty to prepare an Integrated Care Strategy (ICS) which set out how the ICB, NHS and councils would work together to address the needs of the population in respect to health and social care.

5.3       One the clear distinctions between the two was the legislation described footprint for each as set out in legislation. The HWBB followed boundaries of upper-tier local authorities, where as the ICP followed the ICB boundaries. In Gloucestershire’s case, these were the same footprint as health and local authority were coterminous, this however was not the case in most other areas of the country.

5.4       The guidance allowed Gloucestershire to take advantage of this unusual situation in that it was able to align the roles and ways of working of the two boards very closely. This paper therefore proposed to do so by amending the HWBB terms of reference and align them with those for the GHWP. This would result in both boards being able to meet on the same day, in the same place with the same group of people in attendance to discharge their separate but interrelated functions.

5.5       There was also a minor proposed change to the GHWP terms of reference to reduce the quorum to a quarter of the membership, rather than 50% which was unusually high.

5.6       A member highlighted an error on page 8, paragraph 3.11 of the report:

Membership of the Health and Wellbeing Board comprises:

·         Chair (will be the same as the Chair for the Health and Wellbeing Board Gloucestershire Health and Wellbeing Partnership); to be appointed by the County Council

5.7       Noting that the new GHWP was statutory required to produce the ICS, there was a discussion around scrutiny arrangements and call-in procedures for the Strategy. It was advised that the Strategy could not be called in the same way that an executive decision within GCC could. The Strategy was more akin to policies that would go through budget and policy framework processes and then be signed off by full council. Any decisions however that public health made as a result of the Strategy would be subject to the same call-in procedure.

5.8       A member requested that the sign off procedure for the Strategy was clarified before this Committee’s recommendation was considered at full Council in May.

ACTION:       Rob Ayliffe

RESOLVED TO RECOMMEND TO THE COUNCIL

that the proposed Terms of Reference for the Gloucestershire HWB and HWP outlined in Annex A are approved.