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Cabinet NOTED the comments made by Councillor
Ketan Sheth (as Chair of the Community & Wellbeing Scrutiny
Committee and Social Prescribing Task Group) in introducing the
report and recommendations made by the Scrutiny Task Group to
review social prescribing in Brent.
 
In outlining the background to
social prescribing, Councillor Ketan Sheth explained that the 2019
NHS long-term plan had incorporated social prescribing into its
comprehensive model of personalised care. Cabinet was informed that
social prescribing aimed to tackle health inequalities, which had
recently been exacerbated by the cost-of-living crisis, through the
referral of patients to a range of local, non-medical services in
the community. These non-medical services sought to address the
patient’s wider issues that could be contributing to their
poor overall health, such as welfare issues or poor-quality
housing.
 
Councillor Ketan Sheth
summarised the Task Group’s work, which had commenced in
September 2022and included evidence gathered from a range of key
partners.  As a result of the evidence
gathered the Task Group had been able to identify a range of
opportunities to widen the scope of social prescribing from NHS
primary care settings, culminating in the Task Group producing five
recommendations. The Task Group’s recommendations, set out in
paragraph 3.3 of the report, were supported by Sir Michael Marmot,
professor at University College London and James Sanderson, the
National Clinical Director for social prescribing at NHS
England.
 
In commending the Task Group
report and recommendations to Cabinet, Councillor Ketan Sheth
advised that he had been encouraged by the Executive response
provided by the Brent Integrated Care Partnership (ICP), giving him
confidence that the Council’s ambitions were shared across
Brent’s healthcare landscape.
 
In responding to the Task Group
report, Councillor Nerva thanked Councillor Ketan Sheth (as Chair)
and the Task Group for their work on the review. In welcoming the
Executive response provided by the ICP he felt this served to
highlight not only the opportunities for the Council to improve the
scope for the development and delivery of social prescribing
arrangements across the borough, working in partnership with the
ICP and key health providers, but also the challenges particularly
in relation to the transparency and equity of funding available
through Primary Care Networks. As part of the process in taking
forward the recommendations, members welcomed the specific
establishment of a Social Prescribing Working Group as a means of
co-ordinating work across partners and seeking to share best
practice, with the benefits of a joined up approach between public
health and culture also highlighted.
 
Having welcomed the report and
Executive response provided and thanked all members, officers, and
stakeholders who had contributed to the scrutiny review, Cabinet
RESOLVED to endorse the Task Group’s recommendations,
as set out in paragraph 3.3 of the report, and the response to them
provided by the Brent Integrated Care Partnership, as set out in
Appendix 2 of the report.