Cheshire West Health and Care Partnership Committee Update
Papers available here:
Chair: Councillor Sheila Little, Cheshire West and Chester Local Authority
Meeting Date: 13th March, 2025
Why does this Committee meet?
The Cheshire West Health and Care Partnership Committee is made up of Members from the following organisations:
- Cheshire West and Chester Council
- The Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Care Board
- Cheshire and Wirral Partnership
- Countess of Chester Hospitals
- Mid-Cheshire Hospitals
- Healthwatch
- And Cheshire West Voluntary Action, on behalf of the Voluntary, Community, Faith, Social Enterprise Organisations within Cheshire West Place.
The Committee meet to discuss, agree and hear updates on progress for work areas that can only be achieved by colleagues within all of these organisations working together.
The meeting takes place every other month and is held in public. Cheshire West Citizen’s are able to send questions up to three days before the meeting around the agenda items.
These can be sent to:
Tanya.jefcoate-malam@cheshireandmerseyside.nhs.uk
Updates from the 13th March, 2025
Introductions, Declarations of Interest, Minutes and Action Log
Councillor Sheila Little Chaired the Committee and noted apologies for the change in venue, this was due to Statutory Services needing to utilise the rooms at the Portal in Ellesmere Port.
This Update will provide a brief summary of each of the topics discussed. Any questions can be directed to the following email address to ensure a response:
Tanya.jefcoate-malam@cheshireandmerseyside.nhs.uk
Innovations – Insights from Frodsham Community Partnership
Regular updates from each Community Partnership are shared at these meetings and this month’s update was from Frodsham, Helsby and Elton. Over the past year this Community Partnership has worked with a large variety of different organisations to enable the local communities to thrive. The current priorities for Frodsham, Helsby and Elton were summarised as: improving communication/awareness, improving mental health (especially in children and young people), improving physical health and supporting the ageing population.
Iris Keating and Martin Maris shared some case studies demonstrating the lived experience of local people who have accessed the services that the Community Partnership has initiated. Direct quotes from people highly praised the value of having these local community services and the impacts they have made.
Frodsham, Helsby and Elton is a unique community partnership being volunteer led with input from clinicians. The funding for this service has been provided not just from the Integrated Care Board, but also from grants from other organisations, only accessed due to the hard work of the volunteers involved. All of these pots are what makes this Partnership sustainable and they are now exploring further steps they can make to ensure their future e.g. the development of a Community Interest Community. There was a discussion about how these examples are important to help other Community Partnerships to thrive.
One of the key challenges for next year will be obtaining quantitative data to help measure the impact. Work is taking place to ensure that at this time next year there will be more evidence-based information showing how invaluable this work is.
The focus for 25/26 will align to the local and Place priorities of long-term conditions (cardio-vascular disease) and connecting communities. Work is taking place with Brio to get the Living Well bus out to communities where there are high levels of deprivation as well as a specific focus on young people’s mental health/emotional wellbeing.
All Place Partner Organisations thanked the Community Partnership for their inspiring work. Slides: https://westcheshireway.glasscubes.com/share/s/9g8vkqetcoeb7gt52l3o0acjka
Transformation Priorities
Charlotte Walton, Executive Director of Adult Services from Cheshire West and Chester Council provided an update on the Cheshire West Place transformation priorities.
Last month, a workshop took place to review and reflect on the following achievements and successes from the Transformation Programme to date:
- the launch of Community Response Hubs which have ensured people have been discharged safely back to their own home quicker following an hospital stay,
- Community Partnerships,
- the development of a joint Mental Health Strategy to deal with out challenges across the system as partners
- the Accommodation and Care Models programme, ensuring more people with Learning Disabilities and Mental Health are supported and continue toto live closer to their families.
The programme proposed for this year will take a focus on: Modern integrated neighbourhood teams helping to ensure more people are supported in the community and avoid admissions into hospital, early support for mental health, continuing to progress the Accommodation and Care Models programme and a joint approach to Long Term Condition prevention. It was asked that this programme is now turned into some communications that set out more clearly what the impact of this work will be for local people.
Although everyone was fully supportive of the programme, there was acknowledgement of the extreme financial pressures and challenges within the system that could hinder progress.
The transformation programme aligns with the national strategy which is to shift care, where possible, from the acute hospitals to the community, from treatment to prevention and greater use of technology.
For a copy of the report please see here: https://westcheshireway.glasscubes.com/share/s/p8orafuo1rpk1asmdb8ijgao87
System Finance Update – Focus on Better Care Fund
Natalie Abraham, Director of Strategy and Transformation from Cheshire West and Chester Council provided an update on the Better Care Fund, a joint fund of existing NHS and Local Authority monies that is used to support Home First priorities.
At the present time the Better Care Fund is administered as aligned budgets with shared governance, but there is an ambition to formalise this into a Pooled Budget which will enable truly joint decisions, risk and benefit share. Therefore, work has been taking place to introduce a ‘shadow pooled budget’ approach from April 2025 working toward the ambition of a formal pooled budget from 2026/27
The Committee discussed how they can work together with the Health and Wellbeing Board to progress this work.
Please see attached paper here https://westcheshireway.glasscubes.com/share/s/34fl9ouqek24ogi1e8v0luocjc
Place Directors Report
Laura Marsh, Place Director for Cheshire West Place, shared an update on the Place report.
The Quality Team at Place have been supporting the work on avoiding hospital admissions by focusing on hydration in Care Homes, supporting Care Home staff to test out ways to improve and maintain residents hydration to prevent falls/urinary tract infections etc.
There is also a focus in Cheshire West on improving care for people with neurodiversity. A new children and young peoples’ pathway will be launched in 2025/26 as well as a new Adult ADHD pathway.
A list of the Cheshire and Merseyside commissioning intentions are included in the report. These now need to be slimmed down so that the focus is on those that will have the biggest impact.
The current Chief Executive of Cheshire and Merseyside, Graham Urwin has taken the decision to retire. Cathy Elliott, who is currently the Chair at NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board, has been appointed to this position. Cathy will be invited to meet with Cheshire West Place Committee to help learn more about Cheshire West Place Partnership and the communities it serves.
The last Integrated Care Board meeting took place in January 2025 where they discussed the closing position around the Thirlwall enquiry and the ongoing impacts from the Southport tragedy. Other items included in the report include the devolution of Local Governments at a Cheshire level, a consultation around gluten free products. As well as the fact that for the first time, 5 year cancer survival rates in Cheshire West are better than the England average.
Please see a copy of the report here: https://westcheshireway.glasscubes.com/share/s/931el4gcma4t92c1dkvrqr9jnf