To update members of the board on the ICP’s progress towards establishing the ICS Strategy and provide assurance that there is strong alignment with the JLHWS that is being considered at the same meeting, and to inform members on the development to date of the JFP and to outline how the HWB will be asked to engage in development of the JPF before its publication in June.

David Mehaffey provided an update on the Integrated Care Strategy and NHS Joint Forward Plan. The Integrated Care Partnership (ICP) met and approved the Integrated Care Strategy on 26^th April for publication, with minor amendments to be made. Publication will not take place until after the elections in accordance with NHS guidance. The principal points included:

1.     The strategy is strongly aligned with the Health and Wellbeing Strategy with a ‘best start in life’ priority present in the Integrated Care Strategy.

2.     Best start to life covers living, ageing, and dying well, in addition to preventing ill health, premature death, and vulnerable causes.

3.     Mental health and wellbeing, the second core priority of the Health and Wellbeing Strategy, runs through all of the priorities in the Integrated Care Strategy.

4.     Mental health covers mental health in children, adults, and preventing suicides.

5.     The ICP meeting on the 26^th April raised the importance on mental health and the new collaborative and focusing on the relationship with the voluntary sector and the change in the way of commissioning to attempt to move away from a purely medical model.

6.     The Joint Forward Plan (JFP) is a single document that is jointly owned by the ICB and the three NHS Trusts in the ICS area. This will form the response to the Integrated Care Strategy.

7.     The Health and Wellbeing board will be asked to consider the JFP in a development session at the end of May with a substantially complete document provided by 19^th May.

8.     The specific request of the board will be to form an opinion on the extent to which the JFP addresses the priorities set out in the Health and Wellbeing Strategy.

9.     The JFP will consequently be marked and reviewed by NHS England as part of an assurance process.

The Chair asked about the inclusion of waiting lists in the update report and whether it will be covered in the future.

David Mehaffey confirmed that specific trajectories are in place to cut waiting lists with the intention to tackle the long waits that some people have had to experience. The next phase is to bring down 78 week waits to 65 week waits and to get back to 18 week waiting lists in the long-term future.

Councillor Diana Toynbee asked what the relationship is between the ICB, NHS England, and the Department of Health and how accountability works.

David Mehaffey stated that the Department of Health is the government department that allocates resources to NHS England. NHS England then allocates the vast majority of its resources to the 42 ICBs across the country but retains some services itself for things that are best managed on a national scale including some very complex surgeries and military health, for example. Accountability, locally, for NHS services, is the ICB and elected members who then have an accountability to NHS England in the Midlands region who in turn are held accountable by the national NHS for their regional  ...  view the full minutes text for item 11