Champs Public Health Collaborative System Leadership Meeting | Key messages | February 2025

The Cheshire and Merseyside Directors of Public and Population Health met for their system leadership meeting on Friday, 14^th February.  The key messages from the meeting are below along with items of good news and gratitude.

1. All Together Smokefree presentation – The Directors were given a progress update on the Cheshire and Merseyside All Together Smokefree programme with key achievements so far and priorities to 2027. The All Together Smokefree Partnership Board is working well and there is good engagement across the system. Next steps are to co-produce and deliver population level and targeted behaviour change, supporting the stop smoking system and advocacy/engagement for policy change.
2. UKHSA update – There are still high levels of flu and although Covid cases have decreased, hospital admissions linked to Covid are still high. Cases of Norovirus are also high, therefore UKHSA will be stepping up on prevention messages to the public. There is an UKHSA conference on 25/26 March and the Royal Society of Public Health 5 Nations Health Protection conference will take place on 7/8 May in Birmingham. A tool kit has been co-produced by UKHSA and the NHS on vaccinations for pregnant women.
3. Population health – The Health and Care Partnership is planning a workshop on child poverty on Tuesday 18^th February 2025. The purpose of the workshop is to identify areas where the partnership can take collective action to alleviate and prevent child poverty, promote awareness of what is working well at local and sub-regional levels and establish a programme of action within the All Together Fairer programme.
4. Kind to your Mind – The updated Kind to your Mind website has now launched and the Directors were advised on the website functionality as well as the promotional plans, which include radio and social media advertising and PR. The Directors were keen to ensure the campaign reached local communities and that it is shared across the relevant boards.
5. Public health narrative – The Directors were updated on a project to share our Collaborative achievements across various platforms and highlight the child poverty work across Cheshire and Merseyside. The Directors will consider the plan presented and it will be discussed in more detail at the next meeting in March.
6. Good news and gratitude – The Directors shared items of good news and gratitude:
   1. Cheshire and Merseyside were featured as a case study in a LGA tackling health inequalities report for their work as a Marmot community.
   2. The Government has made an announcement on the statutory levy on gambling, its prevention and associated harms.
   3. The All Together Smiling programme is working well with Kensington Children’s Centre’s Tiny Teeth programme highlighted for good work.
   4. The public health annual report for Wirral is due to be published soon following committee early March, with a focus on addictions.