Isle of Wight Community Strategy

This paper provides an update on the development of the Council’s Community Strategy.

Work is underway to develop the Community Strategy for the Isle of Wight, which will set an over-arching ten year vision for the Island. The purpose of the Community Strategy is to provide a framework for enhancing the quality of life of the local community and contribute to the achievement of sustainable development through out the country, through action to improve the economic, social and environmental well-being of the Island and its people. The Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions has set four objectives for Community Strategies:

§ Local communities must be able to feed their aspirations, needs and priorities into the strategy

§ The strategy will provide a vehicle to co-ordinate the actions of the Council and the public, private, voluntary and community organisations that operate locally.

§ The strategy will focus and shape existing and future activity of these organisations so they effectively meet community needs and aspirations.

§ The strategy must contribute to sustainable development, locally and more widely.

§ An action plan identifying shorter-term priorities and activities that will contribute to the achievement of long-term aims

§ Arrangements for monitoring and review and progress reporting to the local community.

All other local plans such as the Health Improvement and Modernisation Plan, the Unitary Development Plan, the Children’s Services Plan and the Local Transport Plan will link to the Community Strategy

Consultation programme, including events targeted at hard-to-reach groups	October/November 2001
First draft of strategy completed	End of December 2001
Formal consultation	January – March 2002
Formal approval of strategy	March – April 2002
Implementation of strategy	April 2002 onwards

Key themes have been identified for the strategy and conveners are leading work in each of these areas:

§ Rural issues – John Wibberley – identified as a cross-cutting theme to be covered in all groups.

It is felt there are two aspects relating to health and social care that need to be covered within the strategy, the vision for health and social care services and programmes to improve health and well-being. The second element will need to be a cross-cutting theme that will run throughout the chapters of the Strategy. A briefing paper has been prepared for the Conveners of all the other groups to ensure the determinants of health are comprehensively covered throughout the document as it is developed by the different working groups. This paper covers such areas as:

§ Housing – tackling homelessness, promoting home safety checks and reducing fuel poverty

§ Social inclusion – promoting uptake of full benefit entitlements, affordable leisure opportunities to encourage healthy exercise and healthy eating on a low income initiatives

§ Learning – supporting the development of parenting skills, providing opportunities for life-long learning and inter-generational projects and increasing knowledge about health and healthy lifestyles.

§ Regeneration – promoting healthy and safe workplaces and developing regeneration schemes which strengthen social support and build individual and community capacity.

§ Tourism – encouraging the development of tourist facilities which are accessible to disabled people and promoting smoke-free environments in tourist facilities

§ Transport – maximising funding for rural transport initiatives, promoting green travel plans and encouraging the development of walking buses to encourage children and parents to walk to school..

§ Environment – promoting all IW Council buildings as smoke-free environments.

Partnership Board members are asked to discuss the key issues and challenges facing both health and social care services and agree a vision for service development over the next ten years. A draft list is attached below for consideration. Views are also needed regarding the priorities for improving health and well-being and these may well need to be set down as challenges to other group conveners to ensure their action plans address the core social and economic determinants of health appropriately. The draft Social Inclusion Statement for the south-east region, published recently by the Government Office for the south-east identifies that “70% of the determinants of people’s health are outside the realm of the NHS”. The Council and other local organisations have an important role to play if health and well-being are to be significantly improved locally.

The list of issues and proposals will go forward to the Conveners’ Group at the end of September who are co-ordinating the production of the draft strategy. These outputs, together with those from other conveners will form the basis for the first phase of public consultation on the strategy. As work on the strategy progresses, it is anticipated that Island Strategy Group and the Partnership Board will act as the key groups for debate, agreement and endorsement of the health and social care components of the Community Strategy.

The overall priority is to manage services within the resources available to us.

§ Reducing smoking – multi-agency approaches, supported by the health service to reduce smoking and promote smoke-free environments

§ Promoting health in all settings, including healthy schools, healthy workplaces and healthy prisons

§ Implementing the National Service Frameworks, the National Cancer Plan and Valuing People strategy

§ Improving waiting times in hospital and primary care, including bed management initiatives

§ Developing care pathways & more holistic approaches to care, including integrated assessments

§ Encouraging appropriate use of the NHS & social care system , including use of NHS/Care Direct.

§ Promoting independence, developing rehabilitation services and care outside hospital and improving stroke services

§ Developing more flexible community support for vulnerable people, including those with mental health needs and people with learning disabilities

§ Managing the market for residential, nursing home and domiciliary care, to ensure adequate capacity for local needs, including workforce planning and skills development.

§ Quality of care including food in hospital, cleanliness, single sex accommodation.

§ Developing the information and communications technology capacity in the NHS & social care system, including on-line booking, electronic transmission of results and telemedicine.

Contact point: Charles Waddicor, Director of Social Services and Housing, ( 520600