Issue - meetings

·         Report by the Director of Sussex Collaborative

25.1     The Board considered a report by the Director of Sussex Collaborative, Lead Sussex Armed Forces Network, providing assurance on the progress to meet the needs of the armed forces community in East Sussex.

25.2     The Director of the Armed Forces Network clarified that the Armed Forces Network is not a service itself but raises awareness and brings together other services for the common purpose of meeting the needs of the armed forces community. Some of its current key pieces of work include:

·         Looking at the needs and issues of the children of armed forces personnel in recognition that they have poorer outcomes than their peers, and raising their profile within the Local Safeguarding Children Board;

·         Producing information and e-learning for families and young carers within the armed forces community on how they can access additional services;

·         Working with SSAFA, Combat Stress, and other organisations to ensure that there is additional support available for the armed forces community in Hastings because of the identified higher levels of mental health issues and homelessness in the area.

25.3     The Director of Healthwatch East Sussex said that the organisation has a low profile amongst the armed forces community but is keen to raise that profile in order to collect their experiences of the health service and identify where gaps in healthcare provision may be. The Director of Healthwatch and the Director of the Armed Forces Network agreed to discuss how best to raise Healthwatch’s profile.

25.4     SEAP carried out specialist advocacy work in the Thames Valley area funded by the British Legion for the most vulnerable and hard to reach service personnel. The Chief Executive of SEAP vouched for the importance of having advocates of the armed forces community with a military background because they were better able to identify the most vulnerable and hard to reach armed forces personnel.  The Chief Executive of SEAP offered to share the information and experiences gathered by SEAP through this advocacy work with the Armed Forces Network.

25.5     The Board RESOLVED to:

1) note the progress made to date by Sussex Armed Forces Network and services and partners within Health and Social Care;

2) support and encourage the continuation of the work of the system working together to deliver the needs for this community;

3) note the work undertaken by the East Sussex Safer Communities Team to review data held on veterans and agree this is used, where possible, to implement these recommendations;

4) continue joint working across Sussex through the Sussex Armed Forces Network to provide leadership, champion the needs of this community and raise its profile; and

5) agree that consideration is given by all agencies, through the East Sussex Safer Communities partnership to improve data collection.