Calderdale Council: ‘Our health and wellbeing board has been re-energised’

Calderdale Council approached PCH to help refocus the work of its health and wellbeing board. Two PCH peers were used – one a former councillor and HWB chair and the second a GP. 

Director of Public Health, Deborah Harkins said: “There was a sense that our HWB lost some focus following the introduction of the integrated care systems. I think many areas have found this. As we now have the integrated care boards, people were beginning to question what the role of the HWB was.

“The Calderdale Cares Partnership Board (CCPB), as ours is known, has many of the same members as the HWB does plus chief executives and chairs of local NHS trusts. The CCPB was seen as the board with teeth. But we know HWBs have a crucial role to play. We just needed to refocus on what that was and refresh the way it worked to ensure it was fit for purpose. That’s when we turned to PCH for support.”

Two development sessions were held with HWB board members – one in November and one in February - with the PCH peers acting as facilitators. The first session focussed on what the purpose of the HWB was, exploring the distinctive role of the board and how it operated to discharge effectively its responsibilities.

The second session was more forward looking and focused on helping the HWB to define its role and unique purpose and to be clear about how it needed to operate in order to add value and reduce duplication.

Following that the PCH peers held a series of one-on-one interviews with non-statutory members such as the police service and local Healthwatch group to explore their experience of the HWB, their role and how the board might work more effectively going forward.

Deborah said: “The sessions were really good. What’s great is that PCH bring examples of what other areas are doing and because of the backgrounds of the two peers – one a councillor and one a clinician – they have immediate credibility. It made the members buy in to the process from the start.

“It helped us all realise the role and place of the HWBs in the new system – and why they are so important in tackling health inequalities and meeting the goals set out in our health and wellbeing strategy. The HWB brings together all the partners together – the police, housing and voluntary sector - that makes this possible. In contrast, the CCPB is focused on health and care, but that’s only about 20 per cent of the determinants of health.”

As a result of the development sessions, an action plan was drawn up to refresh the way the HWB worked. Instead of having five meetings a year, the number was reduced to four with each focused on one of the four life stages:

• starting well
• developing well
• living and working well
• ageing well

Agendas are now being framed to reflect these key themes for each meeting while incorporating the board’s statutory duties in a timely manner. The also include items of business with the opportunity for all to feedback and contribute to the HWB forward plan.

“It has allowed us to really use the meetings to focus on what we want to do – and to have a deep-dive into the topic,” said Deborah. “Before our approach was too broad and we were trying to do too much. We used to have meetings about the agenda. It was all taking up too much time and ended up with too much on the agenda. Now we discuss what is being done to achieve the priority goal in each life stage as well as having a business item for the things we have statutory responsibility for such as the Better Care Fund or joint strategic needs assessment.”

To ensure progress is made on the action plans that are agreed at the HWB meetings, each life course has a sub-group – or in case of the living and working well theme a network is being developed, as there are already a number of boards established in this field including ones on mental health, suicide prevention, getting active and the economy. A system of reciprocal membership has also been introduced with the chair of the HWB and chair of the CCPB sitting in on each other’s meetings to ensure there is no duplication.

Deborah said the support provided by PCH has been invaluable and put the HWB in a strong position to help achieve the goals set out in the health and wellbeing strategy. “It is so important having a fresh set of eyes. Because they are independent, they can ask the sort of questions we may struggle to ask and people can be really honest with them too – that is vital.

The HWB chair, lead officer and I had regular check-in meetings with the peers throughout and we worked together to co-produce the recommendations to move forward with.

I would definitely say to others having the one-on-one interviews with the non-statutory members is really useful as the peers were able to test out some of the ideas we had come up with during the development sessions with them.

“It has also thrown up some other issues that we are now acting on. For example, one of the things that came out of the process was that new members of the board sometimes felt a little lost when they first joined. Existing members tend to be so ingrained in the workings of the board that it was not always easy for them to get to grips with it, so we have started doing what is effectively an induction for new members.

What’s really good is that PCH can tailor the support they provide to what works best for you. It’s not an off-the-shelf formula. The support we have got has put us in a really good place and re-energised the HWB.”