Chris Best

It was a pleasure to welcome Sir Norman Lamb, the Chair of South London and Maudsley to Lewisham and discuss the work of South London Listens.

A long-standing and active campaigner for mental health, Sir Norman Lamb has worked to challenge stigma around mental health and to ensure people with mental health issues are treated with the same priority as patients with physical health needs.

South London Listens was launched in 2020, by the three mental health Trusts in south London (South London and Maudsley, South West London and St Georges, and Oxleas)

Over the following 12 months, through community meetings, group conversations and a listening campaign we heard from more than 6,000 people across south London about the impact the pandemic had on them and their ideas for how we can support them to recover.

The two-year South London Listens Action plan was launched in October 2021. The plan sets out in detail how we will work together with the other mental health Trusts, local authorities, public bodies and community groups, to deliver our pledges to the community.

The plan identifies four priority areas where action is urgently needed:

Loneliness, social isolation and digital exclusion

Work and wages

Children, young people and parental mental health

Access to services

It is a great achievement that all of Lewisham's GPs have signed up to Safe Surgeries - for more information about the programme and to see their latest achievements, visit the South London Listens website - https://www.southlondonlistens.org

It was a pleasure to at the launch of the ground-breaking BLACHIR report on Black health inequalities in Parliament with Janet Daby MP and Paulette Hamilton MP.as I was delighted to lead this report for Lewisham and contribute to the Foreword -

Birmingham and Lewisham are global communities that thrive from the many cultures and communities within them, including large, diverse and vibrant Black African and Black Caribbean populations.

For too long our Black African and Black Caribbean populations have experienced health inequalities. These have often been ignored and their voices unheard, with these inequalities often accepted as fact rather than an unacceptable wrong to be addressed.

Although it has been hard, the journey over the last eighteen months has been worth it. It has also underlined the critical need for the work as our Black African and Black Caribbean residents have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19 pandemic, both directly through infections and deaths, and indirectly economically and socially.

This review has opened difficult conversations, analysed the published research alongside lived experience, and talked head on about the practical steps needed to make lasting change.

We are grateful for the honesty, passion and commitment of the individuals and groups who have been part of the boards or taken part in the community sessions that have guided our work and offered challenge through every stage of this review. Their personal contributions led to the review identifying not just the challenges, but also important opportunities for action to be taken forward in our local communities and systems; as well as further afield in other local, regional, national and international settings.

The review is the first step in a longer journey of transformation and resolution. It shines a light on the unfairness our Black African and Black Caribbean citizens live with every day which damages their health and wellbeing. This is the reality for too many citizens who live within our communities. They experience racism and discrimination, ignorance and invisibility existing within structural and institutional processes that underpin and perpetuate these inequalities.

This is a reality that must change.

The review sets out clear opportunities for action driven by evidence and it is now for us as leaders to work together through the Health and Wellbeing Boards, new Integrated Care System Partnerships and most importantly with our communities themselves, to take them forward. We are already implementing some of these opportunities for action locally in our areas, through programmes such as Community Champions and pilots of culturally competent health and wellbeing programmes, and we have begun to engage national partners in responding to these opportunities nationally.



We must be committed to a better future for our citizens, and we must work together to seize every opportunity set out in this report to make our communities fairer and healthier for all.

For more information and a copy of the report please visit -

https://lewisham.gov.uk/myservices/socialcare/health/improving-public-health/birmingham-and-lewisham-african-and-caribbean-health-inequalities-review

Following the elections in May 2022 I have changed roles to become the Chair of Healthier Communities Select Committee. I am looking forward to scrutinizing decisions taken having been part of the Executive of Lewisham Council for the last 20 years under Mayor Sir Steve Bullock and the current Mayor Damien Egan.- serving as his Deputy for three years from May 2018 to May 2021 and delivering a radical manifesto.

We have experienced over 10 years of austerity with reduced funding and continued to deliver many pledges to improve the lives of our residents in Lewisham.

From May 2018 - May 2022 I has the Cabinet Portfolio for Health and Adult Social Care includes responsibility for

• Adult social care, including care home and at-home provision and quality assurance
• Health and social care integration
• Adult safeguarding
• Joint commissioning
• Mental health
• Public health
• Birmingham & Lewisham African and Caribbean Health Inequalities Review (BLACHIR)
• Supporting people
• Older people, including representation, active citizenship, combating isolation, housing, technology, aids and adaptions

I have been leading on health inequalities and reporting back on the partnership work with Birmingham. We now have a two year Health Equity programme with an investment of £2m.

In managing through the cuts we have had to move some of the Local Assembly meetings online - so we will continue with two in person and two online every year.

* Local Assemblies

In February Lewisham Council agreed to sign up for the Ethical Care Charter developed by Unison. The Charter outlines a list of suggestions to Councils for improving home care services for users, and providing a better work environment for home care employees. Since then, I’ve overseen a report aimed at understanding all the implications and challenges of adopting the Charter, and recommending the best plan for Lewisham to do so. That report was approved by the Mayor and Cabinet on the 20 September 2018.

I believe that adopting the Ethical Care Charter is an extremely important undertaking for us. Without these provisions, home care workers aren’t guaranteed compensation for travel costs and they may be rushed getting from one client to the next, so they are unable to provide as much care and attention as they would like to.

The London Living Wage, currently £10.75 per hour, is the only wage calculation that takes into account the actual cost of living based on goods and services. It is higher than the national living wage £8.21 per hour and applies to all adults instead of just those over 21 or 25 years old. Calculations for the London Living Wage also recognize the higher cost of living in London compared to other areas of the UK, while other standard rates do not. Following the London Living Wage is part of the Ethical Care Charter because paying employees what they actually need for them and their families to survive is a necessary part of improving home care.

Unfair treatment for workers has a negative effect on services, meaning that clients who use home care services aren’t provided with the level of support, respect, and dignity that they deserve. These individuals are in a vulnerable position. It is our responsibility as a Council to make sure that they are treated well and given the utmost quality of care.

I have spent a lot of time campaigning for improved pay and conditions for care workers throughout the industry and am proud to be a supporter of the Future Social Care Coalition, a cross-party and cross-sector group which has been lobbying the Government to deliver a fair deal for social care workers.

I was pleased to attend Lewisham's Food Poverty Summit this week and contribute to the work of our partners in tackling food poverty and offering wrap around support to vulnerable residents.

Please read my blog on Food Poverty and see what we are doing and the plans to promote take-up campaigns to ensure residents do not miss out on grants available.

Adult social care is one of the most important things we do as a Council. We are reaching the next stage of an important piece of work which will transform the way we provide these services in Lewisham and improve outcomes for some of our most vulnerable residents.

Lewisham is coming to the end of a three year national pilot of a whole systems approach to tackling obesity (one of only 4 local authorities in the country). We have high levels of childhood and adult obesity - with 39% of children obese in Year 6 and 58% of adults.

We are a Sugar Smart borough promoting the use of less sugar in meals and reducing snacking. We have over 100 businesses and organisations signed up to Lewisham Sugar Smart. We work with schools to encourage more physical activity in the Daily Mile and now have 10,000 children running 12 minutes a day in over 30 schools. promoting events in our parks.

The Lewisham Obesity Alliance had been working with over 60 organisations in the borough in a variety of activities from promoting walking to breasting feeding.

We know that advertising is a very powerful influence on what we all eat and especially children. Lewisham was also the first London borough to sign up to the Sugar Smart campaign. This campaign has seen many local businesses, restaurants, and schools sign up to offer low-sugar, healthier alternatives. Childhood obesity is at the top of our agenda in Lewisham, we will all be keeping a close eye on the results.

The first outdoor advertising billboards promoting the Sugar Smart Lewisham campaign have already appeared in selected locations around the borough. The Sugar Smart campaign supports local businesses and organisations to offer healthier food and drink options.