Agenda item

The Chief Executive submitted a report (previously circulated) which provided the Members of Council the opportunity to agree a response to the consultation documents issued by the North Yorkshire Health and Wellbeing Board:

a. Realising Our Potential – Our New North Yorkshire

A North Yorkshire Approach to Integration, Prevention and New Models of Care

b. North Yorkshire Health and Wellbeing Board Draft Mental Health Strategy

c. North Yorkshire Health and Wellbeing Board Draft Joint Health and   Wellbeing Strategy

The following questions were raised:

Councillor Ives asked the Chairman Councillor Arnold :

"Why has this item come straight to Council, when I believe that it went before the O&S Committee? I would presume that under normal circumstances this report would come from the O&S Committee, it would then be for the Chairman of the O&S to move the report and to be seconded by the Vice Chairman and for questions to be directed to the Chairman  of the O&S seeing as it is his Committee that has studied this report and debated it. So once again we seem to be completely omitting standard procedure."

The Chairman Replied:

"We'll take a note of that."

Councillor Clark asked the Chair Councillor Arnold:

"I'd like to ask the question - if you have a hernia op, if you have a length of time in hospital with a broken leg, if you have a waiting time before you have your tonsils removed etc, all the physical health side, they've all got targets, they've all got timescales. I wonder if you could tell me why there are no timescales worth a light in the draft mental health strategy?"

The Chief Executive replied:

"I can't but we can take the comments from this Council to the County Council and Members of the County Council might be able to ask directly themselves."

Councillor Clark replied:

"We have 2 representatives on this body  - 1 is the CX and 1 is a Councillor somewhere else because the other one lost the leadership of Richmondshire Council - it said in the paperwork for that lot that the district councils have made a submission. Now I don't know where that was ..... I didn't know we'd made a submission or even that collectively that we'd made a submission.............some councils take scrutiny of health seriously as a district authority and I can't explain the question that Cllr Burr was asking about obesity. I can explain the one about serious road accidents and deaths that Cllr Raper mentioned because we're a very small population with a large amount of roads with a lot of tourists travelling through and those tourists do not figure in the number of people that are here but they figure in the deaths and so on ....... Would you agree with me that it may be worth this Council considering looking at health on an ongoing basis rather than the scrutiny and health committee doing it................?"

Councillor Thornton asked the Chairman Councillor Arnold:

"Can I embrace the concept of reducing road traffic accidents and commend the programme that was started in Pickering some 10 years ago or more, which has now been superseded by a further programme delivered by North Yorkshire I believe and that involved redesign of Golden Hill amongst other things. Might I ask the CX to recall the start of a programme of work in Pickering in 2004 and the byzantine progress it has been making since then to deliver a sport for all/exercise for all Community Park at Whitby Road. There was a considerable amount of work done on this, it was before they even dreamt of an Olympic bid, so at that time there was plenty of money. It's still making limping progress but the original concept  was to have a play park for babies right the way through to a long walk for older people and in between that, exercise for all. As for a health measure, as for a mental health measure and for a societal change, so that there was more community cohesion. At that time there was Section 106 money of round about £1 million earmarked for Pickering allegedly and I wonder, Madam Chairman if you would like to consider how much money the District Council and perhaps even the County Council, could put towards this effort that we were having and still have to deliver sport for all / exercise for all in Pickering?"

The Chairman Councillor Arnold replied:

"We have taken note of what you've just said. I can't give you a yes or a no. I can't give you an answer to that but that question will be taken on board butI'm afraid I can't just say yes or no this evening. There has been a note of that and has been taken into consideration."

Councillor Clark asked the Chairman Councillor Arnold:

"One comment to add to that. We will be getting, I hope, answers back. I'm quite happy and I'm not expecting Janet to answer these questions. They're rhetorical but there will be answers coming back to the specific questions I hope. Can they be minuted somewhere because otherwise back to the same Cllr Ives comment earlier on, you will have the report coming in here, the questions leaving here and the answers disappearing into the ether, so they do need to come back probably to Full Council again."

The Chairman Councillor Arnold Replied:

"They will be minuted. We have taken those on board and they will be minuted and they will get a response."

Councillor Wainwright moved and Councillor Acomb seconded the following motion:

            The documents be supported subject to the comments being made.

Upon being put to the vote the motion was carried.

Resolved

            The documents be supported subject to the comments being made.

Voting Record

24  For

0  Against

2  Abstentions