The North Central London Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee was scheduled to discuss the West and North London Corporate Strategy and Involvement Framework, as well as the committee's work programme for the upcoming year. The meeting's report pack detailed significant challenges facing the health and care system in West and North London, including rising demand, health inequalities, and the need for a shift towards proactive and community-based care.

West and North London Corporate Strategy and Involvement Framework

A significant portion of the meeting was dedicated to considering the West and North London Corporate Strategy and Involvement Framework. The report pack highlighted that the health and care system in the region faces growing pressures, with demand, complexity, and expectations outstripping the current model's capacity. It was noted that outcomes and inequalities are not improving, and a two-track health system risks emerging, where those with resources access alternatives while others are left with increasingly pressured services.

The strategy aims to improve outcomes for the 4.5 million people living across the 13 boroughs by focusing on three connected goals: improving outcomes, easing pressure, and making the best use of resources. Key priorities for the West and North London Integrated Care Board (ICB) in its first year included delivering operational commitments and financial plans, setting up the new organisation for success, investing in high-impact population health interventions, and developing a clinically-led strategy.

The report pack detailed that the strategy development approach involved understanding people's needs through population data, service use, and resident feedback, as well as looking ahead to future demands and checking how resources are being used. It also outlined a methodology combining engagement with evidence and analysis, with residents and staff shaping the strategy throughout a five-step process.

Six population groups were identified as strategic priorities:

• Healthier beginnings: Focusing on pregnancy, babies, children, and young people, with specific attention to early years and family support, and young people's mental health and employment.
• Healthier lives: Addressing working-age adults, including those with serious mental illness (SMI) and those at risk of, or living with, early-stage long-term conditions (LTCs).
• Healthier ageing: Supporting older adults and end-of-life care, with a focus on adults with complexity and ensuring a dignified death for all.

The report also outlined commissioning principles designed to target investment towards population need and deliver neighbourhood-based care at scale. These principles included investing in population cohorts, commissioning coherently across siloed providers, investing boldly in evidence-based interventions, building gradually with a modular approach, and proving concepts by starting with higher complexity and risk.

The report pack also presented case studies illustrating how the proposed changes could impact residents. One example, Maya, 67, highlighted proactive identification and coordinated care for an individual with multiple long-term conditions, aiming to keep her safely at home. Another, Amir, 9, focused on earlier identification and a single point of contact for a child with suspected ADHD and autism, aiming for support that reaches the family.

The committee was also scheduled to consider a new public involvement framework for 2027-30. This framework aims to set out how the ICB will listen to people, make involvement more inclusive, support the ICB's 10-year strategy and left shift ¹ by capturing insight into the causes of demand and drivers of ill health, and how public insight will influence commissioning decisions. Engagement activities undertaken to inform this framework included reviewing existing insight, launching the Let's Talk campaign, attending community events, and conducting resident surveys and in-depth conversations with community leaders. Emerging themes from this engagement included the importance of early involvement, co-production, lived experience as expertise, closing the feedback loop, inclusion, accessibility, community partnerships, and multiple ways to participate.

Work Programme 2026-27

The committee was also scheduled to review its draft work programme for 2026-27. This included planned discussions on the West and North London ICB's strategy, integrators, and the Work Well Strategy. Future agenda items for the committee were also noted, including updates on the Whittington Health NHS Trust Quality Account, winter planning, the ICB's finance and estates strategies, the NCL Health Inequalities Fund, and updates on hospital mergers and specific hospital programmes. Potential future items for discussion included digital service provision, the NHS 10-year plan, and neighbourhood health initiatives.