Agenda item

Presentation attached from David Latham, Dr Cathy Fines and Trudy Delves.

Councillor Fitzgerald reminded members this report was being discussed following a request by members.

Dr Cathy Fines introduced the report and reminded members that Bury don’t commission maternity services but we want to make sure the experience for Bury ladies is as good as possible.

Jon Hobday, Director of Public Health advised members that there is a pretty steady birth rate and highlighted ambitious targets to reduce smoking during pregnancy, although Bury’s figures are at an all time low as well as being in front of GM and lower than national average.  Jon also highlighted low birth weight and that this broadly aligns with areas of deprivation

David Latham highlighted the national and GM priorities as welk as the GM system performance measures.

Trudie advised members on the infrastructure that Bolton provide for Bury ladies including community midwives who provide support.  Midwives have recently attended training on pregnancy circles which is a different way of providing antenatal care.  Ladies see midwives in a group and through this method have more hours of midwives time and develop relationships/peer support groups.  There have been IT issues which the teams have been working on resolving.

Councillor Rubenstein queried what we could draw from the performance information?

David Latham advised that colleagues do quality and performance management of the trust and Manchester and Bolton are on track to score 10 out of 10 full compliance.

Dr Cathy Fines advised that the Maternity voices partnership is national way we review journey across GM partnership and providers

Councillor McBriar queried how we could reduce smoking in pregnancy to zero?

Jon Hobday confirmed it was a challenge. More funding has been received to do more innovative work including earlier education with the younger generation

Councillor Boles queried how can we be assured that those voices of BAME women who are 3 times more likely to die in childbirth, and Asian women who are twice as likely to die in childbirth, are included in service redesign?

Dr Cathy Fines confirmed that Healthwatch did some work a couple of years ago and found there were pockets of ladies who weren't booking early.  Some of this was due to culture  and work has been done to improve outreach and education.

Councillor Boles also queried the responsibility of hospitals as well?

Trudie confirmed this was very much high up on agenda including annual cultural training, providing dual languages and encouraging ladies to speak in their preferred language.

Councillor Ryder expressed concern at some of the statistics, which underlines the importance of getting Family hubs in place to provide support.  She also queried when we will start to see more refreshed data to reflect family hubs having improving impact?

Jon Hobday advised it depends on the individual data sets using but confirmed we are using the most up to date data available to us.

Councillor Fitzgerald queried the adverse relationship between children underweight and overweight when they finish KS2 and how do we see what we are doing is having impact?

Jeanette Richards confirmed that we are taking opportunity to bring partners together. Focus is from point of conception and bringing support services together but optimistic that we will see some impact.  

Councillor Simpson queried whether data on vaping was included?

Jon Hobday confirmed that this data is specifically related to smoking.  Work is being done to encourage young people to stay away from vaping; this is a public health issue that we need to do more work on.

Councillor Simpson also queried whether we take similar action on vape shops as we have with fast food?

Councillor Fitzgerald confirmed this was something we could take away and reminded members that young people did a motion on disposable vapes.

Councillor Smith advised that nationally there is a move to licensing vape shops, and when it comes through will be able to monitor shops more effectively.

Councillor Fitzgerald thanked everyone for attending and the presentation.