Agenda item

The Committee considered the fourth report in connection with the childhood obesity review, containing information relating to the role played by GPs, dieticians, health visitors, school nurses and children’s centres in tackling childhood obesity.

Dr Sabina Shaik, the Slough CCG Paediatric Lead attended and explained the limited role currently played by GPs regarding obesity prevention.  GPs referred patients presenting with high BMI levels to paediatric dieticians following an initial assessment including blood tests.  If needed patients were referred to Community Paediatricians.  It was acknowledged that there were a number of areas where the CCG would be looking to strengthen working practices.  These included:

• Following referral to a dietician or paediatrician, a robust system of monitoring and follow up on progress needed to be introduced.
• All GP surgeries could introduce a system of regularly having health checks for children up to 16 years of age.
• A closer liaison with public health, health visitors and school nurses with a view to earlier identification of children and families at risk of obesity in order to address the issue jointly.

It seemed that GPs were not generally aware of the range of programmes offered by the Council to support families, encourage healthy lifestyles and increase physical activity.  The Committee requested that Dr Shaik be supplied with a comprehensive package of information about all the relevant Council programmes and services, in particular the services to support child development offered through the Children’s Centres by the Council and partner agencies, for dissemination to all GPs in Slough.  Dr Shaik agreed to report back to the Committee in due course with progress and feedback.

Sarah Parsons, the Locality Manager from Children and Families Services, explained the role of school nurses and health visitors in dealing with issues of childhood obesity around prevention and health promotion to children and their families, individual support and signposting on.  The Healthy Child Programme was led and delivered by health visitors, providing services covering pregnancy and the first five years of life.  An increased number of health visitors were now working in Slough and there was a continuing programme of work to recruit more.  Care started at ante-natal classes where the emphasis was on the birth and breast feeding.  Post-natal groups, particularly important for first time mothers, were offered at Children’s Centres and could provide advice on breast feeding, weaning and nutrition as well as social and psychological development.  The school nurse team undertook the childhood measuring programme at Year 1 and Year 6 and offered regular weighing, dietary advice and general health promotion.  The Committee noted that the measuring programme was aimed at providing national and local data to inform decisions about services, not to track individual children.  Members considered it would be useful to have information about the numbers of referrals made by school nurses and health visitors and who these were made to.

Jean Cameron, Development Manager, Children’s Centres, described the role of the 10 centres across Slough in providing a ‘one-stop’ shop in a local neighbourhood with services for families and young children.  A particular strength of children’s centres was the broad range of services that were offered, irrespective of the original reason for initial attendance at the centre.  The Committee was particularly interested to learn of services to support parenting skills such as healthy eating drop-ins and the cookery school, and services to support the home environment such referrals for grants for cooking equipment and food bank vouchers.  There were 6,500 under 5s registered at the children’s centres compared to total of about 13,000 under fives in the town.  Experience showed that working with families over time to change habits and behaviour could be very successful and this was illustrated by way of a case study given to the Committee.  The challenge remained, however, in making all families aware of children’s centres and the services available.

Philippa Collings, the Public Health Nutrition Lead, outlined the programmes and projects that had been introduced in Slough in recent years which contributed to tackling childhood obesity.  The Healthy Schools Programme in Slough (and across Berkshire) had provided advice and funding to bring improvements in school meals provision and packed lunches, physical activity and guidance around substance abuse matters.  The School Food Survey carried out an annual review of dinners and lunches enabling schools to compare their standards and performance with others and with previous years.  Particular projects running included Catering for Health, aimed at improving standards among all catering establishment including schools, Food Awareness Week, and Mission Healthy Eating, a programme of work in specific schools to improve the nutritional quality of packed lunches and promote school meal uptake.  About to start in January 2014 was “Let’s Get Going”, a programme through Berkshire Youth to work in three primary schools initially, over a 10 week period, on nutrition, physical activity, behavioural change and an after-school healthy lifestyles club.

The Committee recognised that there was a great deal of excellent work to tackle childhood obesity taking place. However, whilst the range of Council programmes and services offered to help was wide and varied, their effectiveness was heavily reliant on individual parents and children coming forward to take advantage of them.

Resolved –

(a)  That thanks be extended to all who had contributed and participated in the debate.

(b)  That the information provided in the Committee report and arising from the discussion at the meeting be drawn on to compile the final report for the obesity review.