Agenda item

Report by Executive Managing Director, East Sussex, NHS Sussex and Director of Adult Social Care.

29.1     The Board considered a report of the draft Sussex Integrated Care Strategy (ICS).

29.2     The Board asked if the Strategy will look at the cost of living crisis, loneliness and isolation and whether it is going to cover reducing smoking, alcohol misuse and addiction.

29.3     Mark Stainton, Director of Adult Social Care and Health outlined that East Sussex County Council had been working on benefit maximisation and other types of support to help residents with the cost of living crisis. The Public Health team will continue to work on smoking cessation and addiction. The Integrated Care Strategy provides a high-level vision and case for change and focuses on three key priorities that will make a difference to people’s health and wellbeing. The details will be in the delivery plan and accompanying equalities impact assessment.

29.4     The Board commented that how the Strategy is implemented and having enough resources to deliver it will be key. The Board also commented that the workforce and use of technology such as artificial intelligence and digital technologies will be important in delivering the Strategy. It asked when the delivery plan would be available and whether success measures will be included in the delivery plan.

29.5     The Chair commented that the implementation plan will be developed by the end of March 2023 and the resources will be addressed as part of the plan. Mark Stainton confirmed that a draft delivery plan will be ready to share with the Board in March 2023 and key measures of success will be developed for inclusion in the plan.

29.6     Vicky Smith, Programme Director, East Sussex Health and Social Care Transformation added that the Integrated Care Strategy is high level and delivery planning will need to be undertaken in the place-based partnerships. There is existing work in East Sussex taking place to tackle the issues flagged in the Strategy such as loneliness and isolation. The Strategy will help recast some of our local partnership priorities with the added benefit of system-wide support at a Sussex level. The population health and wellbeing measures are fundamentally important and national guidance on a shared outcomes framework is awaited, which should cover social care, the NHS and public health. This will also shape how the system carries out the measurement of population health and wellbeing in concert with the work Public Health is undertaking through the Population Health, Prevention and Health Inequalities Steering Group.

29.7     Alison Jeffery, Director of Children’s Services, thanked East Sussex colleagues and partners for advocating for Children and Young People to be a priority in the pan Sussex Integrated Care Strategy. It will be important to ensure this commitment is reflected in the delivery plan for the Strategy.

29.8     The Board commented that there is some confusion about what is meant by working at a local level. Is this place, District or Borough, neighbourhood, locality network, or community of interest level and does this differ if it refers to Brighton, West Sussex or East Sussex? When it comes to integration, locality, and joint working it would be good to have some clarity about what is meant by working at a local level.

29.9     Mark Stainton acknowledged this point. One of the first actions in developing the delivery plan will be to clarify some definitions. The one of ‘place’ is clear, there are three places across Sussex which coincide with the boundaries of the three upper tier authorities and HWBs. Below that level it is less clear, and more discussion needs to take place. In terms of integration, there needs to be clarity about what is meant by integration, joint working and partnership working. It does not have to mean changes in organisational structures but that different professionals work together from Districts, Boroughs, NHS and voluntary sector organisations around a discrete group of individuals in the community. When this work was done before there were twelve localities across East Sussex that aligned with the District and Borough council boundaries. This needs to be looked at again, including whether Primary Care Networks could be a good local level to work at. Alison Jeffery commented that sometimes it is necessary to work at on different footprints for different purposes. For example, in Children’s Services that might be around different groups of schools.

29.10   The Board RESOLVED to endorse the draft Sussex Integrated Care Strategy, specifically the elements that relate to East Sussex and its alignment with priorities set out in the East Sussex Health and Wellbeing Strategy ‘Healthy Lives, Healthy People 2022– 2027’.