Agenda item

HEALTHY WEIGHT DECLARATION

To receiev a report from the Director of Public Health.

Minutes:

The Director of Public Health introduced the report. The Board were told that the Health and Wellbeing Strategy had seven priorities and healthy weight was one of them. In addition Health and Wellbeing was one of the Council’s Corporate Priorities especially in terms of reducing health inequalities. Obesity represented one of the main health inequalities in the area with the level of deprivation closely linked to the levels of obesity within both adults and children. While exercising was linked to healthy weight it was not able to make up for a poor diet.

 

The Healthy Weight Declaration had been designed to help local authorities demonstrate their commitment to promote healthy weight and improve the health and wellbeing of their communities. The declaration included fourteen standard commitments and each local authority was then able to add on any additional commitments relevant to their area. The version presented to the Board contained the standard fourteen commitments which included; to ensure food and drink provided at public events include healthy provisions, supporting food retailers to deliver this offer, and to advocate plans with partners to address the causes and impacts of obesity. The Board was asked to agree to progress the singing of the declaration and to identify a champion to support the declaration being signed by the Council.

 

The Vice Chair was in favour of the declaration and believed that the Board should support the declaration. It was noted that the declaration was designed for local authorities but the Vice Chair felt that the Board should ask all partners to sign up. The Director of Integrated Health and Social Care Strategy agreed that all partners should sign up to the declaration and asked whether it was for the Board to hold partners accountable to ensure that they delivered against the declaration.

 

The Director of Public Health pointed out that the report did mention taking a partnership approach and outlined how assurance could be provided. The Executive Member for Children’s Services stated that the Board needed to make sure that the declaration led to improvement. The Director of Public Health informed the Board that the Public Health Programme Manager was working on the Council’s healthy weight strategy which would link to the declaration.

 

The Director of Integrated Health and Social Care Strategy added that for an effective partnership approach the Board needed to provide leadership. This could be done by presenting the declaration and supporting documents to partners stating that this has been signed up to by the Health and Wellbeing Board and the Board would be overseeing its delivery.

 

The Chief Executive of Wythenshawe, Trafford, Withington, and Altrincham stated that a discussion was required around how this would be done in partnership. The declaration could be provided to partners in its current form but they may not be able to sign up to it as many of the commitments were only relevant to local authorities.

 

The Corporate Director for Children’s Services noted that a lot of partners who were important in delivering the commitments were not represented on the Board. The Board needed to look at engaging with partners, for example schools and nurseries, to coproduce a version to be adopted.

 

The Executive Member for Adult Services raised a point about how the Board could support the declaration and ensure that the Council delivered against it.  They questioned whether the Board should change the way meetings were conducted or if the Board should set up task and finish groups to deliver the commitments.

 

Director of Independent Living, Care, and Support, Trafford Housing Trust spoke about the lack of choice people who used food banks had. There was a problem as a lot of the food given to those food banks was unhealthy and did not support a balanced diet.

 

The Corporate Director for Adult Services concluded that it was clear that the Board agree with the idea behind the healthy weight declaration but it was felt that the report should be adjusted so the Health and wellbeing Board signed up to the declaration so a partnership approach could be taken to deliver the commitments. A piece of strategic work needed done to support the declaration with a plan in place which included actions and deliverable measures rather than just a declaration.

 

RESOLVED: That a new declaration, with a delivery plan, be developed in collaboration with partners for the Board to sign up to.

 

Supporting documents: