[Lina Martino, City of Wolverhampton Council and Sarah Fellows, Wolverhampton Clinical Commissioning Group, to present briefing]

The Public Health Consultant presented a report on the Joint Public Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy.  She commented that Government Strategy called for mental health to be given equal importance to physical health, referred to as parity of esteem.   It was important to focus not just on helping people with mental health difficulties but also on prevention.  The Joint Public Mental Health & Wellbeing Strategy provided a high-level summary of current and planned workstreams across the Council and CCG to promote population wellbeing and improve mental health.  The aim was to not only meet the specific needs of different age groups, but also to reduce cumulative disadvantage associated with poor mental health and wellbeing and related risk factors.  She referred to the table on page 16 and 17 in the report which illustrated how complicated the mental health system was to navigate. 

A Councillor referred to a gentleman who had attended a six-week mental health course, had shown improvement whilst on the course, but had now relapsed.  He was awaiting further treatment.  This highlighted the gaps in between stages and cited ongoing wider community support as being important in such cases. 

Resolved: That the Health Scrutiny Panel note:-

1)    The Joint Public Mental Health & Wellbeing Strategy is an overarching document that incorporates City of Wolverhampton Council (CWC) and NHS Wolverhampton CCG’s Joint Mental Health Commissioning Strategy for 2018-2019–2020-2021. It includes not just commissioned services to support people with mental health problems, but wider public services and workstreams to prevent mental ill health and promote population wellbeing.

2)    The Joint Public Mental Health & Wellbeing Strategy and Joint Mental Health Commissioning Strategy were informed by an extensive consultation that was carried out as part of a Mental Wellbeing Needs Assessment completed in June 2017. This included:

a)    The Wolverhampton Healthy Lifestyle Survey conducted in March 2016, which included specific questions related to mental wellbeing and elicited responses from 9,048 individuals across the city;

b)     24 focus groups with the community such as younger adults, older working age adults, and older people; and

c) 34 interviews with professional stakeholders including voluntary sector representatives, health professionals such as GPs and Pharmacists, and Council officers from a variety of teams.

3)    Initial feedback was sought on the draft Strategy document from Council and NHS professionals, and members of the Wolverhampton Mental Health Stakeholder Forum and Suicide Prevention Forum. A process of further engagement is currently underway to capture feedback from a broader range of stakeholders.