Devon County Council requested Partners in Care and Health’s (PCH) support to deliver Prevention Matters training for its councillors. Twenty-two councillors attended the one-day workshop in May – around a third of the members of the council. A range of actions were identified for councillors including plans to boost active travel, invest in play parks and working more closing with district and parish colleagues.
The challenge and approach
Devon County Council’s public health team has in the past run its own masterclasses for councillors to brief them on the public health agenda. They were always well received but tended to be largely utilised by councillors who were on the Health and Care Scrutiny Committee or the Health and Wellbeing Board.
Public Health Consultant, Simon Chant said: “Prevention is a key priority for us and so this year we decided we wanted to do something more in-depth and attempt to engage more members as we know making progress on prevention cuts across a wide variety of areas. That’s when we turned to PCH for their support to deliver a Prevention Matters workshop.”
The workshop was run in May at County Hall in Exeter and lasted for half a day. It was led by two PCH peers – a former director of public health and a councillor from the East Midlands, who is a chair of a Health and Wellbeing Board.
“PCH were very flexible,” Simon said. “Because we are a large rural county we decided we wanted to do a slightly shorter day to account for the travelling members would have to do. We discussed the idea of allowing people to join remotely, but PCH and we both felt this was something that works much better face-to-face.”
A circular went round to all members inviting them to the workshop with targeted communications sent to those councillors who sat on either the scrutiny committee or health and wellbeing board. In total 22 attended, around a third of the councillor body. What is more, half were non-HWB or scrutiny committee members.
The priorities for action
The workshop started with a presentation from the PCH peers on how elected members can improve the health of their communities, which included a detailed looked at the wider determinants of health alongside the role councillors play.
There was also a session to provide an overview of the health of the local population, which was delivered by Simon. Then in the afternoon, the participants broke off into smaller groups to come up with their own actions that they could take to prevent ill-health. A host of priorities were identified, including:
- Using the locality budget to support sporting initiatives for young people
- Tree planting schemes
- Raising public health as an agenda item in parish and town council meetings
- Exploring speed limit reductions in villages Working with district colleagues to improve local play parks
- Working to improve local paths Advocating fitness and wellbeing Promoting active travel options Supporting people to grow their own fruit and vegetables
- Using the community infrastructure levy money to boost cycling and walking to school initiatives.
Simon said: “It was a fantastic day – I think it really energised the members and got them proactively thinking about prevention. The Public Health Team had already been supporting members, but I think there is real advantage in having external people come in and reinforce and build on some of the messages.
“We purposely had a very light officer presence there – just myself and two others. We wanted it to be a safe space for members where they could discuss some of their ideas and challenges.”
"Making a big difference"
Councillor Sara Randall-Johnson was one of those who took part. As chair of the Health and Scrutiny Committee, she is well versed in prevention, but she said the training helped inspire her and others.
“We all know budgets are tight in local government, but what really struck home was the way they described prevention. At one point one of the peers made the point that investing in prevention leads to savings – and helping people to become healthier for longer.
“Now that really hit home. We had a range of councillors at the workshop and we all know highways budgets are challenging and we are having to spend more on social care. If we can change that just a little bit, it would make a big difference.
“That is the challenge we face – getting people to make the small changes in their lives and supporting them to do that in a way that allows them to become healthier. That is a goal all of us should be aiming for – no matter what area of council life we are involved with.”
Devon is now looking at ways to build on the momentum and is exploring further support from PCH to progress their work around developing a health in all policies approach across Devon involving council officers. “It would be a good way to move forward with what we have achieved so far. The Prevention Matters workshop has helped members understand their individual roles – but we want to develop on that further,” added Simon.