Issue - meetings

          Members of the Board received a report and accompanying presentation from the Director of Integration, Mersey and West Lancashire Hospitals, which set out the Trust’s Health Inequalities Dashboard.

          Mersey and West Lancashire Hospital Trust provided care for around 50% of Halton’s population, with a particular focus around Widnes.  Board Members were informed that a recent Kings Fund Health Inequalities paper sited a number of statistics which included:

·       People in the most deprived areas were twice as likely to die prematurely from cardiovascular disease than people in the least deprived areas;

·       People in the most deprived parts of England were more than twice as likely to wait over a year for elective care than people in the most affluent areas in 2022; and

·       The difference in life expectancy for people living in the most deprived areas of England compared with the least deprived areas is 9.7 years for males and 7.9 years for women.

The Trust was committed to reducing health inequalities and therefore had developed a dashboard that used near live data to support the journey.  The next steps in the development of the dashboard would be to complete the activity undertaken within the wide Trust’s footprint to include Sefton and West Lancashire.  The Trust was in dialogue with Warrington and Halton Hospitals Trust to explore the possibility of providing this system to their Trust as this would give a complete picture of Acute Care in Halton.

          The dashboard held demographic data of local boroughs as well as elective and non-elective activity across the Trust.  The data from the dashboard, along with insights from Public Health, should lead to changes in service provision and lead to a reduction in health inequalities.

          The Board noted and discussed the information presented and suggested that there needed to be more of an understanding about why some people do not attend appointments.  A question was raised about “did not attend” rates for children and young people and whether it would make a difference if this was changed to “was not brought” (by parents).  It was noted that this approach was being considered by Alder Hey. 

Further work was needed from a) a quantitative perspective and whether patients were showing up in the hospital system somewhere else and b) from a qualitative perspective, patients should be asked why they are not turning up.  This should provide a clearer picture to change the system and help prevent those on the waiting list ending up in A&E.

RESOLVED: That the Board:

1)    note the establishment of the Health Inequalities Dashboard; and

2)    endorse the collaboration with Warrington and Halton Hospitals Foundation Trust so that a complete picture of Acute Care across Halton is available.