Agenda item

36.1     The Board considered a report on the draft East Sussex Housing Partnership Strategy, which was presented by Michael Courts, East Sussex Housing Partnership Lead, which is a joint role between Public Health and the five local housing authorities. The report has been brought to the Board whilst the Housing Partnership Strategy is still a working draft. Work has been underway to scope the key priorities in the draft Strategy which acknowledge the significant importance of the wider work on housing and the link to reducing health inequalities. The work on the Strategy followed the publication of the Director of Public Health annual report in 2019/20 which explored the links between health and housing and built on the partnership work that was developed during the Covid pandemic.

36.2     Mark Stainton commented that the draft Strategy is an evidence based piece of work that is helpful and a good example of joint and partnership working. Housing is one of the key building blocks of population health and wellbeing and has a significant impact on the demand for health and care services. Often where people are delayed in hospital there is some element of housing involved in the causes of delays. It is good that there are six priorities in the draft Strategy around wider housing priorities, and it is not solely focussed on homelessness prevention. It also dovetails well with the other strategies that have been developed on health and wellbeing.

36.3     Simon Morris, Head of Partnerships at the Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) commented that the PCC is doing some work with a charity called Prisoners Building Homes which is partnered with local councils and businesses to build modular homes. He highlighted that this is an extra initiative which could be included within the draft Strategy.

36.4     Stephen Lightfoot thanked Michael for the report and commented that he was very pleased that we are linking health and housing.  He was supportive of having a section on housing, health and care which was really strong. Stephen asked if there was a possibility of incorporating some health outcomes with the other measures. For example, on the section on housing standards, could there be linkages to things such as damp housing and mould on walls that links to health and in particular the impact on people with respiratory disease. As we know from the ICT health profiles, there is a higher proportion of people with asthma and COPD in the five ICT areas compared to the Sussex and national average. If it would be possible to include a health measure in one or two of the other sections of the Strategy it would make it even stronger.

36.5     Michael Courts commented that the Partnership has had a strong focus on the new regulations for social housing providers to ensure there is a tenant voice around understanding their housing and health needs. There are also pilot projects around asthma clinics and how we link that to identify people who may be in housing need and to other areas of work. The Housing Partnership has linked the Prisoners Building Homes scheme into the Development and Enablement Group to explore how to support the scheme locally and to make links with local building contractors to provide opportunities locally.

36.6     The Board RESOLVED to:

1. Review the draft strategy and provide feedback on amendments, updates and additions to strengthen links to ongoing work to reduce health inequalities; and

2. Note the next steps to finalise and adopt the strategy.