To receive a report from the Director of Public Health.

The Director of Public Health gave a brief overview of the make-up of the Child Death Overview Panel (CDOP), how it functioned, and the purpose of the panel. Trafford’s Panel was held in partnership with other Councils to have a large enough population to be able to identify trends from the data gathered. ER explained that there was a very low number and out of those around 50% were due to uncontrollable factors. The Director of Public Health informed the Board that the report would also to go to the Trafford Safeguarding Board.

A Member of the Board noted that Stockport had a lower level of child deaths despite having more children in care and they asked whether the differences had been looked into.  The Director for Public Health responded that the child death rate was higher mainly in premature children within Trafford and it appeared as though the reasons were linked general poor health outcomes such as the mothers BMI.

The Executive Member for Adult’s Services noted that there were some recommendations addressed to the Health and Wellbeing Board and they wanted to know what the Board were doing to address these recommendations.  The Executive Member for Children’s services added that she would like to have a better understanding of the connection between Trafford services and indicators, such as healthy weight, to provide assurance as to whether Trafford was investing their resources in the right areas, especially in relation to preventative services.

In response to the Councillors questions the Board went through the areas where Health and Wellbeing Boards were recommended to take action and provided an update on the Trafford position. The Director of Public Health informed the Board that Trafford did very well in the reduction of smoking while pregnant. The Chief Executive of Wythenshawe, Trafford, Withington, and Altrincham added that MFT were very committed to tackling smoking with the Board of MFT looking at removing the remaining smoking shelters from their sites, MFT treated vaping the same as smoking across their sites. The cure programme had been proven to work very well and MFT were in the process of rolling the programme out wider. All MFT inpatients were screened as to whether they smoked and those that did were supported to quit. The Executive Member for Adult’s Services told the Board that she could arrange for someone from the Cure Programme to attend a future meeting to describe the work that they do.

The Managing Director Health of Trafford LCO informed the Board noted that health visitors were mentioned within the recommendations and offered to provide an update to the Board for the next meeting.

The Chair requested that a report come to the Board on the work that was being done to reduce smoking and encourage healthy weight within Trafford.

Councillor Brophy spoke about child deaths often being an indicator that something may be wrong within the system. However there was a question around how many near misses had happened prior to each death. The Director of Public Health added that an area that could be looked into is still births that went to term as another possible indicator of issues.

The Executive Member for Children’s Services stated that the Council needed to look at the poverty strategy and poverty board for ways that these issues can be addressed. The Director of Public Health assured the Board that this was part of the poverty strategy as those on lower incomes were more likely to have the poor health outcomes which contributed to child deaths.

The Chair of HealthWatch Trafford spoke about the importance of bereavement services in dealing with the death of a child and asked what Trafford did to support families. The Director of Public Health responded that there were a number of charities in the area which supported families and this was also something which could be addressed through a social prescribing offer and was something that the Council were looking at.

The Corporate Director for Adult’s Services informed the Board about the team in Trafford who worked with families when there was a death of a child and some of the developments that had been made to support families in the immediate time afterwards. The Corporate Director agreed that there was a need to look at how they linked with bereavement services. The Corporate Director for Children’s services added again that these deaths were not just about medical issues but were caused by wider problems such as domestic abuse which was why a holistic approach was needed

RESOLVED:

1)    That the report be noted.

2)    That the Board agree all the recommendations within the report.

3)    That reports on the work being done to reduce smoking and encourage healthy weight be provided to the Board.

4)    An update on the work of Trafford Health Visitirs to come to a future Board meeting.

5)    The Cure Programme to be on the agenda for a future Board meeting.