Agenda and minutes

Natalie Baker-Swift

Catherine Underwood

None.

To approve the minutes of the meeting held on the 28 June 2022

The minutes of the meeting held on the 28 June 2022 were agreed and signed by the Chair.

Presentation by Karon Foulkes, Head of Children’s Commissioning and Transformation, NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire ICB

Karon Foulkes, Head of Children’s Commissioning and Transformation, NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire ICB, delivered a presentation to the Board and highlighted the following:

(a)  a new regional hub is being developed for children who have complications related to excess weight;

(b)  asthma is a key focus locally as it is the most common long-term medical condition for children in the UK. Nationally, rates are higher among minority ethnic groups but in Nottingham it is higher among white groups. Young people with asthma are more likely to have special educational needs for mental health reasons, perform worse in exams and leave school earlier;

(c)  the ICS network meets monthly to develop a whole system approach to asthma management, with a roll out of tiered training to begin in October 2022 across education, early years settings and universal services;

The following points were raised during the discussion which followed:

(d)  more work could be done to reach those from whom English is not a first language and those with low literacy levels, such as communication by video;

(e)  the city has recently piloted School Streets to encourage children to walk to school and avoid idling cars outside schools, which could help with asthma and breathing problems if expanded;

(f)  additional support or an initiative for schools would be useful on the correct use of inhalers, breathing and relaxation techniques;

(g)  co-production with children and young people is important. when developing strategies, to gather their views;

(h)  NCVS has an e-bulletin and providers network which could be useful for disseminating information.

Report of the Corporate Director of People and the Director of Children’s Integrated Services

Ailsa Barr, Head of Children’s Integrated Services, presented the report and highlighted the following:

(a)  Nottingham’s Inspection of children’s services took place between 4-22 July 2022. The Inspection is unannounced and takes place over three weeks The outcome of the inspection for overall effectiveness was inadequate;

(b)  the inspection identified 8 specific areas for improvement:

• Effectiveness and timeliness of responses to children’s needs when first presented to the multi-agency safeguarding hub (MASH).
• Management oversight and direction of front-line work and the local authority designated officer (LADO).
• Social work capacity so that social workers and first-line managers can respond effectively to children in need of help and protection, and that children in care have greater consistency of social worker.
• Placement sufficiency for children in care and those with complex needs.
• The service response to care leavers aged 21 and over.
• The service response to young people who are aged 16/17 years who present as homeless.
• The quality and timeliness of return home interviews.
• Oversight of children missing from education and those who are electively home educated.

(c)  work is being undertaken to improve the timeliness of responses to children’s needs by improving the knowledge of and time taken to gain parental consent;

(d)  there are problems with the recruitment and retention of social workers nationally, leading to challenges in social worker capacity;

(e)  the national market for placements and foster care is challenging. Ambitious plans are underway both locally and regionally to tackle this;

(f)  the report is balanced and does also mention improvements that have been made and areas of strength, but identifies that there is still substantial improvement required;

(g)  the Council is required to submit an Improvement Plan to Ofsted within 70 working days of the publication of the report. Ofsted will undertake Monitoring Visits on areas where improvement is most needed, but Inspectors will also check that performance in other areas has not deteriorated.

The following points were raise during the discussion which followed:

(h)  being a Corporate Parent means that all areas of the Local Authority need to be involved, as well as all partners on this Board. All partners such as schools, the police and health professionals need to be involved and discussions are already starting.

None.

The forward plan was noted.