Agenda item

Considered a presentation by Louise Wallace, Director of Public Health and her colleagues Dr Gill Kelly, Consultant in Public Health, and Laura Young, Public Health Officer which provided an overview of health in North Yorkshire’s coastal communities together with initiatives in a variety of areas to tackle health challenges and inequalities and to secure improvements.

The presentation first centred on:

• The local context of Scarborough and Whitby: the population, the older age profile and lower life expectancy than the rest of North Yorkshire and England, the greater deprivation, the higher unemployment rates, higher proportion of homes rented from housing associations and private landlords, and the lower than average house prices. Reference was also made to the wider determinants of public health: the higher proportion of physically inactive adults, claimants of disability benefits, alcohol related mortality and smoking prevalence. Despite the challenges associated with the statistics, the Director also wished to focus on the coast’s considerable natural assets and the many opportunities to make interventions to improve people’s lives.

In reply to members’ comments and questions about this section of the presentation, they were advised that:

• The projected 20% decrease in 0-19 year olds was probably attributable both to falling birth rates and young people moving away for education and employment
• Cardiovascular and respiratory diseases were the big drivers of life expectancy and healthy life expectancy as other parts of the country, although the latter encompassed much more than physical health
• The Director and colleagues from other council services would produce an analysis for the committee as to why according to the latest Indices of Deprivation 2025, deprivation levels in Whitby had worsened (whilst exercising a degree of caution since the 2025 methodology had altered)
• The average house price in Whitby would also be provided, disaggregated from the overall figure for the area
• The Director was happy to provide a reply to a Whitby resident explaining how the data in her presentation applied specifically to Whitby, noting that often ‘Scarborough’ was used to describe the Scarborough and Whitby area. It was agreed that future presentations to the committee made clear the geographical area covered by the public health initiatives

The next section of the presentation focused on the extensive local work with children and young people, for example:

• Local schools’ success in the Healthy Schools North Yorkshire awards scheme
• A new healthy lifestyles programme for early years, using Humber and North Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (HNYICB) Health Inequalities funding, which tackled for example excess weight among four and five year olds through food education. By evidencing what worked, the plan was scale up these interventions across North Yorkshire
• HNYICB Health Inequalities funding was also being used to promote asthma friendly schools and myHappymind, a whole school approach to mental wellbeing 
• Oral health promotion through supervised toothbrushing in local schools and placing toothpaste and toothbrush start bags in local libraries
• The multi-agency Scarborough Teenage Pregnancy Taskforce established to reduce teenage pregnancy rates in the Scarborough and Whitby area. This included working with the University of York to develop a strong evidence base of the experiences of young parents and developing training for healthcare professionals.

In reply to members’ comments and questions about this section of the presentation, they were advised that:

• Dr Kelly would send them the teenage pregnancy rates in the Scarborough and Whitby area
• The new healthy lifestyles programme for early years was designed to reach parents and grandparents by delivering training around healthy eating in community settings outside schools

The next section of the presentation focused on protecting health through interventions such as the winter vaccination programme, the NYC staff flu vaccination programme, the Scarborough Inequalities (Screening and Immunisation) Group which was set up to help reduce health inequalities by improving uptake of screening and immunisations in the Scarborough and Whitby area, and the work to minimise the public health impacts of the Langdale Moor wildfire.

The Director of Public Health then turned to coastal health improvement through such initiatives as the Living Well Smokefree service, the Movement Activity & Sport Fund launched in October and dedicated to reducing inequalities and improving wellbeing through increased participation in movement, activity and sport at all stages of life, and the new Healthy You Service delivered by the Active North Yorkshire team which encouraged clients to eat more healthily and take more exercise.

In reply to members’ comments and questions about this section of the presentation, they were advised that:

• Public Health was involved in the development of a new North Yorkshire Play Strategy recognising fully the benefits of ensuring that young people have access to safe inclusive play spaces, particularly since some families may not be able to afford paid activities
• Play was not just important for young people, as reflected in the Healthy Ageing Director of Public Health Annual Report 2024 and its focus on developing an Active Ageing Offer and through such initiatives as Ageing Well on the Coast.

Lastly, the Director of Public Health touched on progress made more broadly with her previous year’s Healthy Ageing Annual Report, Public Health’s involvement in the Swift programme enabling migrant communities to thrive, a variety of interventions to support specifically men’s health and specifically women and girl’s health, and funding obtained by her service in partnership with Hull University and York University from the National Institute for Health Research to review over five years how research could be used more effectively to address health inequalities. The Director looked forward to bringing positive outcomes from this research collaboration back to the committee.

In reply to members’ comments and questions about this section of the presentation, the Director of Public Health confirmed that she would investigate the idea of a Nordic snow clearing machine to reduce the risk of falls during wintry weather.

The Chair thanked the Director and her colleagues for their detailed presentation and for answering members’ questions.

Resolved that the presentation be received.