[Graham Birtle]

Ed,

Colin might have seen that Stockton Borough Council's Children and Young People Select Committee completed its review of obesity last year, a copy of the report sits in the CfPS library. The Committee is now monitoring the recommendations it made to Cabinet and the local PCT. If considered useful we could be contacted to provide more information, contact details are included in the report.

Graham Birtle, Scrutiny Officer

[Steve Sienkiewicz]

Ed, Blackpool recently completed a scrutiny into preventing childhood obesity. I'll Email you a copy of the report that you can pass to Colin if this will help.

Steve.

[Gemma Waugh]

Somerset Children's Trust Scrutiny Panel will be looking at obesity as part of a topic in Feb/March. We will be looking at eating disorders linking CAMHS to physical health including anorexia and obesity. Would be interested in the outcomes.

[David Collins]

We are just commencing a review of this - we are taking a "7 ages of man" approach to see how obesity affects Mothers & babies; young peoples, adults and seniors. We will see how the agencies work together and see what the gaps are.

I would be very interested in participating Ed.,

[Tim Bowers]

Ed, Hertfordshire County Council Health Scrutiny carried out a joint scrutiny with Stevenage Borough Council and Watford Borough Council in 2009 which had a specific focus on levels of childhood obesity in these two Hertfordshire towns. The two districts led on the review and the topic group interviewed a wide range of people including PCT administrators and clinicians, CSF Children Centres, Centre for Research in Primary and Community Care, University of Hertfordshire, district sports development, staff, pupils and parents from a secondary school in Watford and a junior school in Stevenage.

The review was wide ranging and complex with recommendations specifically directed to PCT, CSF and District Councils. I'd also be happy to email the reviews final report and evidence stream to you.

Stephen Weaver, SBC Scrutiny Officer

[colin mitchell]

Thank-you for starting this topic Ed, and to all of you who have already responded- there is obviously a lot of relevant scrutiny activity out there and I look forward to following up these suggestions.
Just to add a little more information on our research:

We aimed to assess the options for local authorities to use the law to encourage physical activity and healthy eating. We identified legal options across a wide range of legal areas, for example the now well publicised potential of local planning policy to restrict hot food takeaways.
The research was funded by the National Heart Forum NHF(confusingly the British Heart Foundation is our group's main funder but weren't actually involved in this research) and they are now looking at developing an online toolkit that provides this information with case studies of existing local authority initiatives.
As Ed says, we are now exploring the practical use of such a toolkit- how best to communicate these options to local decision-makers- and it's clear that scrutineers are in a great position to raise these possibilities across a local authority.

Our report is to be published by the NHF soon and I will post more information on the work as it develops.

Colin Mitchell, University of Oxford

[Adam Richardson]

Hi,

Here in Sandwell we have recently started a scrutiny review looking at tackling obesity. One element we are keen to look at is how decision makers can shape the physical environment to prevent the so called 'obesogenic' environment and encourage a generally healthier lifestyle.

Happy to discuss further, i'm at adam_richardson@sandwell.gov.uk

Thanks - Adam

[Marian Langley]

In 2008 our Health Engagement Panel had a 'round table' discussion related to this issue. We brought together our own officers from Planning & Building Control, Public Health, Parks & Open Spaces and from the Community Team who look after some local transport issues - and we tried to make sure we were 'joining up the dots' and doing all we could (where we have any level of influence) to promote and support physical activity through planning, transport and the physical environment.

We based our work on the NICE documents below:

In January 2008 the NHS National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) published their public health
guidance 8 document 'Promoting and creating built or natural environments that encourage and support public health' www.nice.org.uk/PH008

The NICE guidance represents the first national, evidence-based recommendations on how to improve the physical environment to encourage physical activity to improve health. The guidance complements and supports, but does not replace, NICE clinical guidelines on obesity www.nice.org.uk/CG043

[Teri Reynolds]

Medway have recently completed an in-depth review into healthy eating among children and young people following concern over obesity rates locally. The review document is in the library. There were a number of recommendations for the PCT and the Council, one of which was for officers to investigate the possibility of introducing a Supplementary Planning Document to restrict fast food outlets near schools and where areas already are highly concerntrated with such establishements. This particular recommendation did generate rather a lot of debate within in the press. Other recommendations were around more cohesive working between departments, promoting (free and otherwise) school meals, encouraging stay on site policies in schools and using resources and services available at sure start centres and community projects to promote healthy eating among families.