Agenda item

The Board will receive an update on the Healthy Weight Declaration.

A Public Health Registrar delivered a presentation on the NHS Healthy Weight Declaration, an initiative developed by Food Active, that provided a mechanism for organisations to signal commitment and demonstrate leadership in addressing unhealthy weight. It was designed to support NHS organisations to take a structured and preventative approach, enabling them to work in partnership across organisational boundaries.

It was noted that:

• Maintaining a healthy weight was important for overall health and well-being. In Leicester, 62.8% of adults, 19.3% of children in reception and 39.1% of year 6 age children had excess weight. This was due to the way of living not being conducive to maintaining a healthy weight and a wide range of other influences that play a role.
• Action to address this was needed at all levels, which was why a systems approach had been adopted in Leicester, and NHS organisations formed part of this.
• The initiative consisted of 13 core commitments and 45 organisation-specific commitments where NHS organisations pledged support to achieve action on improving policy, prevention and healthy weight outcomes for the benefit of staff, patients and wider communities, e.g. workplace health programmes that support health and wellbeing, commitment to review food and drink provision in NHS buildings and facilities, commitment to training more staff.
• Adopting this declaration was beneficial in the prevention of excess weight through integrating healthy weight to every aspect of an organisation’s operations and policies and had a different focus to weight management because its approach allowed greater emphasis on prevention. It could also lead to reduced inequalities, economic savings through reduced chronic diseases and was designed to positively impact staff, patients and visitors to NHS sites.
•  There were positive case studies from other areas that had adopted the declaration (included in the report).
• The actions to date were outlined, including:

­   Formation of the NHS Healthy Weight working group, which brought together partners across the LLR footprint.

­   Approval to proceed had been granted by the Public Health Division management team, since the initiative was funded through the council's Public Health Healthy Weight budget.

­   A letter had been issued to the Chief Executives of the ICB, LPT and UHL, outlining the proposals and asking for support. Additionally, work was ongoing to identify suitable leads within each organisation to help progress the initiative. Leads had been successfully identified within LPT and UHL.

• One of the next steps involves securing governance sign-off from the relevant NHS organisations. In addition, a meeting is being arranged to discuss the next phase of the work.
• The Health and Wellbeing Board was invited to note the benefits of adoption, and advocate and support adoption within NHS organisations as the work progresses.

Members were invited to make comments and ask questions, and the following points were noted:

·       In response to the role of the VCSE sector in driving this forward, it was explained that the declaration primarily focused on NHS organisations initially. However, some of the learning/ commitments were general and could be adopted across other organisations. There were plans for the Voluntary sector to be involved in the wider work.

·       It was important to ensure that the different pieces of work from both children’s and adults’ perspectives were fully integrated to ensure consistency in the messaging. Flowing from this, there was an £85m national research focused on effectively delivering public health messages and advancing the prevention agenda from a holistic view, and it would be beneficial to align with this.

·       Concerning the strategy for engaging with PCNs, there were ongoing conversations with the ICB, given that they would be the channel for this. This would come through the neighbourhood work. Additionally, some engagements had begun around offering training for public health staff, and what is particularly relevant for them.

·       Early years/ education did not fit into the NHS declaration directly, but there was a lot of work around healthy weight with schools and early year settings, e.g. LNDS, policies, food offer, etc. The LNDS had been commissioned to collaborate with schools to enhance the school meal provision and the broader food offer, promoting healthier options through staff training, food growing initiatives, and more. About 30 primary schools in the city got awards for this, and there was potential for more.

·       There was a clear priority in the wider system approach in tackling weight-related stigma, with a project officer leading on this. There was also community engagement with health services and professionals around this, with particular care taken where children and young people were involved.

·       The declaration was specific and focused on NHS staff, rather than broader healthy weight issues. A task and finish group had been set up to review the different domains around food provision opportunities, promotion of activities that further this initiative in the workplace, etc. There were plans to collaborate with someone in the media, e.g. a celebrity chef, to provide healthy cooking tips and opportunities.

·       The Board requested a clear presentation on the declaration, progress and achievements in about 6-9 months.

·       A request was also made for a separate update in 6 months on the issues raised about the holistic involvement of schools, PCNs, the voluntary sector and the issues raised around stigma.

AGREED:  

1.    To note the report

2.    Advocate and support adoption within NHS organisations