MD2323 Health Team work programme 2018-2019

Previous approvals

MD2115

London Healthy Workplace Charter

£175,000

MD2115

Healthy Schools London Programme and Healthy Early Years London Programme

£445,000

MD2222

London’s Childhood Obesity Taskforce

£135,000

MD2265

Young Londoners Fund - Mental Health First Aid in Schools

£375,000

ADD2238

Thrive London Campaign

£50,000

DD2191

Social Prescribing: Digital & Voluntary Sector Requirement

£110,000

MD 2171

Young London Inspired

£100,000

2.2 Health Inequalities Strategy

The HIS was launched in September 2018 and will be delivered through a range of GLA actions and partnership arrangements overseen by the London Prevention Board and reporting in to the London Health Board. Mobilisation will focus on the five strategic aims and development of leadership for health. This will include a comprehensive communication programme with an extensive range of audiences, and engagement activity with a range of audiences including statutory partners, the voluntary and community sector, and excluded and marginalised groups. Expenditure of up to £60,000 will fund the mobilisation of the Health Inequalities Strategy and its associated projects.

This will include:

• Development and dissemination of resource packs for partner agencies, consisting of slides, local audit tools, and bespoke implementation resources.

• Production of an animation or film that will be developed with partners to promote the strategy through local health and wellbeing boards and partnerships.
• A mobilisation plan with associated engagement events, conferences and deep dive workshops, involving statutory partners and communities

Decision

• £60,000 to towards the launch and communication of the HIS

Total funding decision under this MD: £60,000

2.3 Healthy Children: every London child has a healthy start in life

Experiences in early childhood set the foundation for physical, intellectual and emotional development. During the first few years of children’s lives, differences emerge in health outcomes including birth weight, dental health, eye health, weight and obesity, and mental health and wellbeing. The main areas of concern include healthy food and drink, levels of physical activity, and their mental and emotional wellbeing.

Healthy Young London encompasses the Healthy Early Years programme and Healthy Schools London, comprehensive award schemes for schools and early years settings. It follows London’s children through their learning environments as they grow up. Healthy Young London is open to all of London’s 13,000+nurseries, playgroups, children centres, creche, and childminders and all 2,500 primary, secondary and special schools. It helps to improve the health and wellbeing of London’s children and to reduce health inequalities by creating environments which support a healthy start to life in everything children do. The Mayor’s key ambition is to ensure the new Healthy Early Years London programme is widely adopted, particularly in deprived communities.

London’s Childhood Obesity Taskforce aims to deliver an overall reduction in childhood obesity – specifically reducing the inequalities that exist between the richest and poorest communities in London. London’s children experience the worst rates for excess weight in the country, with 38% of children overweight or obese by the time they reach secondary school.

The Health Team is also initiating work with partners to support children’s mental health and emotional wellbeing with schools. This is an emerging programme, delivered with Healthy London Partnerships and linked to the social prescribing programme. It will produce a web-based toolkit that will be promoted to all schools in London providing a best practice guide for school leaders, governing bodies and commissioners in health and local authorities leading to:

• Improved mental and emotional support for children and young people in schools
• Better understanding across schools and commissioners on how to access guidance
• A platform to continue to share good practice and further improve services as anticipated government policy is finalised.

The tool will be launched at a conference for schools, health and local authority commissioners in the Autumn.

Specific projects/programmes for which expenditure approval is being sought

• £60,000 to fund the development and launch of a web-based tool kit to support schools in procuring evidence-based services/programmes that improve the mental health and emotional wellbeing of their students.

Approvals already in place

• Separate expenditure approvals totalling £445,000 already exist for the Healthy Schools London programme and the Healthy Early Years Programme pilot (named ‘Healthy Young London’) under MD2115 and the Childhood Obesity Taskforce under MD2222.

Total funding decision under this MD: £60,000

2.4 Healthy Minds: All Londoners share in a city with the best mental health in the world.

The Mayor is championing mental health through his support of the Thrive LDN partnership programme, and his leadership of the London Health Board. Good mental health is as important as physical health to Londoners. It is also vital for both the economy and wider society. Around two million Londoners will experience poor mental health every year. The Mayor’s key ambition is to inspire more Londoners to have mental health first aid training – starting with young Londoners.

As part of the Young Londoner’s Fund, the GLA has committed funding towards mental health first aid in schools. This project is funding youth mental health first aid training (for teachers and other professionals working with young people) to increase the number of trained Youth Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) Instructors in schools (MD 2265).

Thrive LDN is delivering research, campaigns and projects to reduce inequalities and discrimination that can cause poor mental health, and improve the mental health and wellbeing of Londoners. This includes projects to reduce the number of suicides in London. A key focus this year will be to work with partners to deliver a campaign to raise awareness of how inequality and discrimination affects mental health and wellbeing.

The GLA’s mental health investment will fund a citywide campaign to raise awareness of how inequality and discrimination affects mental health, a young Londoner cultural festival and several projects working with individuals from traditionally under-represented and at-risk groups.

Specific projects/programmes for which expenditure approval is being sought

• £70,000 GLA partner contribution towards the This is Me anti-mental health stigma and discrimination campaign. This targets London employers, delivered in partnership with the City of London Corporation. Costs relate to commissioning the campaign, associated programme costs and evaluation,
• £75,000 towards the ‘Right to Thrive’ project being delivered through ThriveLDN: Right to Thrive is a project with Londoners who experience identity-based discrimination and are at greater risk of developing poor mental health. Costs relate to initial London wide and targeted communication and research activities, analysis of findings, and dissemination.
• £25,000 to deliver the Thrive festival (in collaboration with the Mayor’s Culture Team and Mental Health Foundation): Thrive festival is a young Londoner-led mental health arts festival.
• £30,000 towards delivery of the Thrive LDN Champions leadership development programme: this will deliver an open network for Thrive LDN champions and a leadership development programme for Londoners from traditionally underrepresented at-risk groups. Costs relate to training of champions, and development of the network through events and resources.

Approvals already in place

• Separate expenditure approvals totalling £375,000 already exist for the Young Londoners Fund under MD2265 for Mental Health First Aid, £100,000 for Young London Inspired under MD 2171 and £50,00 for the Thrive London Campaign under ADD2238.

Total funding decision under this MD: £200,000

2.5 Healthy Places: All Londoners benefit from a society, environment and economy that

promotes good mental and physical health

Tackling underlying issues in our social, economic and physical environment will have the biggest long-term impact on health and health inequalities i.e. the conditions in which we are born, grow, live, work and age. The differences in these circumstances, which are considerable across London, result in health inequalities. The Mayor’s key ambition is to work towards London having the best air quality of any major global city, with the fastest progress in the most deprived or polluted areas.

The Health Team supports teams across the GLA to adopt a ‘health in all policies’ approach, with a particular focus in 2018/19 on transport, air quality, the London Plan, health and housing, and the Police and Crime Plan (including serious youth violence).

The Mayor’s London Healthy Workplace Charter (LHWC) is a voluntary employer accreditation process that supports and rewards employers for investing in workplace health and wellbeing, providing a series of standards for workplaces to meet to guide them into creating a healthier workplace. The programme aims to reach 750,000 employees by 2020.

Specific projects/programmes for which expenditure approval is being sought

• GLA investment of up to £114,000 to continue to fund specialist public health expertise to ensure due consideration of health and health inequality in the Mayor’s statutory strategies and other key Mayoral priorities (detailed above). There are currently two public health specialists embedded within the organisation (GLA Planning team & Transport for London). This funding will ensure these teams continue to maximise the contribution of transport, planning and other strategies to health improvement and tackling health inequalities.

Other Income

• This will be supplemented by income from Transport for London (£81,000) and OPDC (£42,000).

Approvals already in place

• A separate expenditure approval totalling £175,000 already exists for the London Healthy Workplace Charter under MD2115.

Total funding decision under this MD: To receive £81,000 and £42,000 for this purpose, and agree GLA expenditure of £114,000 bringing the total spend to £237,000

2.6 Healthy Communities: London's diverse communities are healthy and thriving

Londoners are more likely to experience social isolation than people in other parts of the UK. Communities that are better connected and engaged are more socially integrated and are also healthier. The Mayor’s key ambition is to support more Londoners in vulnerable or deprived communities to benefit from social prescribing, to improve their health and wellbeing.

Development of a social prescribing vision is a core part of the HIS and has involved a scoping exercise to understand how best the GLA can support good health through community-based approaches. A social prescribing vision is currently being developed following a commission focusing on the role of local authorities and the VCS in social prescribing and digital infrastructure requirements. Other projects will include:

• a small grants programme for VCS organisations starting in 2019 to deliver the Mayor’s social prescribing vision
• projects focused on mobilising support for people experiencing social isolation and/or unable to access affordable food;

Support for healthy communities also means supporting those at risk of infections, such as TB and HIV, in terms of prevention, and in terms of addressing stigma and discrimination. The Mayor is a signatory to the London fast track cities initiative which is being mobilised in 2018/19 through a co-produced gap analysis for London, and a series of engagement events.

In response to the HIS consultation, the Mayor has committed to exploring how he can give voice to those marginalised or excluded communities experiencing the starkest inequalities, through a co-designed community forum. He will also fund a set of masterclasses for local teams and policy makers to share the learning from the Well London programme on effective community development approaches to tackle health inequalities and foster a community of practice through action learning sets.

Finally, the Mayor has committed to making London a Dementia friendly city, working with Alzheimer’s UK to train up Londoners as dementia friends, share learning and ideas between agencies and stakeholders, and celebrate the contributions people with dementia can make in the City

Specific projects/programmes for which expenditure approval is being sought

• £15,000 to draft and launch the Social Prescribing vision, including resources and an event
• £40,000 to commission research and development priorities identified through the Social Prescribing Advisory Group
• £20,000 support for a national social prescribing conference.
• £45,000 to establish a community forum focused on inclusion health, delivering engagement events and reports
• £35,000 for a ‘Learning Labs’ programme delivering training, resources and action learning sets focused on community development approaches to tackling health inequalities, based on learning from the Well London programme
• £10,000 for mobilisation of London Fast Track Cities programme on HIV with partners including events and commissioning of a needs assessment and gap analysis.
• £10,000 for the development and delivery of the second dementia-friendly London summit in March 2019

Approvals already in place

• Separate expenditure approvals totalling £110,000 already exist for Social Prescribing: Digital & Voluntary Sector Requirement under DD2191.

Total funding decision under this MD: £175,000

2.7 Healthy living: The healthy choice is the easy choice for all Londoners

Addressing health-related behaviours is essential in tackling health inequalities and enabling London to be the world’s healthiest global city. Healthy living encompasses physical activity, food habits, and harm caused by tobacco, alcohol and drugs. The Mayor’s key ambition is get more Londoners to be active every day.

The focus in 2018/2019 will be to deliver the devolution MOU commitments on illegal tobacco, and supporting work to reduce alcohol harm in London. Like last year’s programme, the funding will contribute towards campaigns which aim to reduce the impact of harmful binge drinking on Londoners and emergency services.

Specific projects/programmes for which expenditure approval is being sought

• £20,000 towards supporting an annual campaign to reduce harmful binge drinking:
• £8,000 to deliver policy expertise on drugs, alcohol and tobacco through networks and learning events.

Total funding decision under this MD: £28,000

2.8 Leadership for Health

The Mayor plays a key role as Chair of the London Health Board. The Board seeks to drive improvements in London’s health, care and health inequalities where political engagement at this level can uniquely make a difference, for example through political oversight of health and care devolution and through supporting and accelerating the transformation of health and care services in the capital

The Board will seek ways of giving additional impetus to the ambition to make London the healthiest global city. It will:

• hold four meetings a year and further activity as needed e.g. events, polling, report(s)
• hold an annual public-facing Better Health for London conference

Further work to support the Mayor to effectively champion and challenge the health and social care system will be commissioned in 2018/19. These projects will support delivery of the Mayor’s manifesto commitments to champion and challenge the NHS, advocate for appropriate social care funding, and address public health priorities.

The NHS Liaison programme will continue to enable the Mayor to engage with key NHS leaders, and meet his manifesto commitment to champion and challenge the NHS through regular monitoring, analysis of NHS plans and announcements, and briefing the Mayor’s office on emerging NHS health policy issues.

The London Health and Care Devolution agreement was signed in November 2017, based on collaboration across the health and care strategic partnership in London through the Strategic Partnership Board. Devolution provides opportunities for improvement across the prevention, estates, workforce and service integration agendas.

Specific projects/programmes for which expenditure approval is being sought

• Expenditure of up to £100,000 towards funding for a Senior Policy Officer (NHS Liaison) and a Senior Health & Care Policy & Partnership Manager. These posts will lead the strategic development of GLA policy, programmes and projects relating to NHS services and undertake health policy support and advocacy elements of our NHS service work. This will also include the ongoing development of the GLA’s NHS remit and working closely with the NHS & Healthy London Partnership. These posts were previously agreed via HOPS 0272.
• Expenditure of up to £51,000 to fund a G10 Secretariat Manager post that will support delivery of the priorities of the London Health Board for 2018-19. This is the GLA contribution to this Health & care partnership activity.

Further Decisions

• Further decisions will be submitted under a separate MD in the Autumn outlining expenditure plans for partnership contributions for both the London Health Board (£312,000) and the London Health and Care Devolution Programme (£306,000). This funding is in addition to the £151,000 referenced above.

Total funding decision under this MD: £151,000

Risk

Mitigation

Changes in partnership funding arrangements affect ability to deliver projects

Clarification of partner funding contributions, and active participation in partnership forums

Ability to recruit high calibre candidates to vacant roles in the team following restructure

Recruitment strategy, on-going team development, and focus on team delivery and reputation

National policy development cut across the aims of the health inequalities strategy

Close partnership working, and staying abreast of policy development, including NHS 10-year view, health inequalities, social care and public health