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Listen to this siteMonday 25 March 2002
Minutes of the Nutrition Strategy Steering Group on Thursday September 27 2001
Present:
Joy Whinney, Chair
Theresa Owen
Sue Mably
Professor Claire Wilkinson
Ginny Blakey
Mariella Borg
Professor Robert Pickard
Jeremy Corson
Dr Paul Crawford Walker
Secretariat
Phil Morgan
Hilary Neathey
Jayne Griffiths
Lorna Thompson
Viv Stein
Nia Collier
1.Chairman's introduction
Joy Whinney thanked everyone for attending the fourth meeting of the steering group. She welcomed Professor Claire Wilkinson, Sue Mably and Dr Paul Crawford - Walker to their first meeting. Joy also welcomed three new additions to the nutrition team, namely Lorna Thompson, Viv Stein and Nia Collier.
Apologies were received from Dr Chris Llewellyn, Allan Davies, Keith Davies Jane Ludlow and Claire Paisley.
2. Minutes of 26 June 2001
The minutes of the last meeting were agreed.
2.1 Matters arising
Joy Whinney reported that although she had invited Dr Ronan Lyons to join the steering group as an expert in epidemiology, he had declined on the basis that his expertise lay in the field of communicable disease rather than nutrition. He recommended Jeremy Corson as the most appropriate person to fulfil this role on the steering group.
Joy Whinney reported that copies of the BNF CD-ROM, 'Food a fact for Life' together with site licences had been sent to all Headteachers of secondary schools in Wales. A Welsh language version was now in preparation and would be available early in the New Year.
Both Joy Whinney and Phil Morgan had held a preliminary meeting with David Seal of the Welsh Centre for Health. This reinforced the need to ensure we liaised over issues such as networking and public health training, particularly for non-medics e.g. EHO's and Community Dieticians. David Seal would be invited to address the steering group at a future meeting.
ACTION: Secretariat
Phil Morgan reported on progress regarding the 'Food Dudes' project. This is an intervention designed to encourage increased fruit and vegetable consumption by primary school children. FSA Wales has just contracted with Bangor University to run a pilot study at selected schools in North and South Wales to test the effectiveness of the project. Given that it was Bangor University who were eventually successful in winning the contract to evaluate the project, FSA Wales will establish a management board to oversee the process.
Ginny Blakey expressed support for undertaking this pilot but was concerned NAW colleagues had not been aware of the proposal earlier. It was agreed that it would be appropriate to invite Sue Bowker, Schools and Youth adviser and Chris Roberts, Head of Evaluation, Health Promotion, onto the management board.
ACTION: Secretariat
Regarding work on a paper on surveillance methods assigned to Claire Paisley, Jeremy Corson and Robert Pickard following the May meeting there was very little progress to report although each individual had fed into the process through Claire Paisley, who is now on maternity leave.
Claire Paisley and Jeremy Corson had met to discuss the future of NAW Welsh health surveys but it had been left with Claire Paisley to co-ordinate action. Ginny Blakey confirmed that a proposal to merge the two current adult health surveys had been submitted for the Assembly's 2002-2003 round.
Given the particular importance of having an input into the public health review, a progress report from Claire Paisley would now be sought.
It was important that the nutrition strategy's targets were aligned to the NAW's in so far as health- gain targets were concerned.
Ginny Blakey said an expert group at the National Assembly was currently revising the BHBW health - gain targets for 2002-2007 and she agreed to feed back the present position in order that we could influence future discussions.
Sue Mably added that a series of workshops relating to the revised health-gain targets were currently being arranged by the NAW.
ACTION: Secretariat and Ginny Blakey
3. Priorities paper
There was some discussion about tackling the needs of the elderly as a priority task. It was however recognised that in large measure the elderly would fall within the socially disadvantaged, although when it came to address the approach to this group it was possible a range of action plans would be required. Overall, the steering group remained in agreement with the priority groups previously identified.
Robert Pickard said he intended to speak about the ageing process in his presentation to illustrate people's differing nutrition needs throughout life, thus touching upon the needs of the elderly on the day.
A brief discussion followed on the age criteria to be used to define groups such as 'middle-aged ' men or infants, children and young people.
4. Workshop on 24 October
Phil Morgan set the scene by outlining the workshop programme and invited comments. Mariella Borg, Ginny Blakey , Jeremy Corson and Paul Walker all offered to facilitate during the group session. A scribe would support each facilitator and a volunteer from each group would be identified to report back at the plenary wash - up session.
Although most steering group members had already contributed to the list of invitees, other names and organisations were put forward and these were noted by the Secretariat.
The general view was that it was important to expose the steering group's current thinking to as wide an audience as possible at this stage. For example individual retailers, rather than umbrella organisations, and health alliance co-ordinators for the twenty-two local authorities would now be invited. This would bring the total number of invitations issued to over two hundred.
ACTION: Secretariat
Views in particular were sought with regard to the composition of the group session on the day given the overall aim would be to draw out views on targets for each specific priority group. There was unanimous agreement, at least for the first workshop, that the composition of the groups should be multi -disciplinary. Regarding targets, a general discussion followed and it was agreed that it was important to draw these out in group discussions on the day.
The Secretariat would aim to achieve a good representative cross-section of expertise in each group. The steering group in advance of the workshop would be asked to validate this. A meeting would be arranged between the steering group and facilitators a day or so before to go over all the final arrangements.
ACTION: Secretariat
Attention then focussed on the information needed for inclusion in the proposed position paper that would be sent to delegates in advance of the workshop. It was important that sufficient emphasis was placed on the proposed priority groups so those delegates had an opportunity to focus thoughts on the issues thereby facilitating discussion on the day.
The paper also needed to refer to the NAW aims, objectives and targets in order that the steering group's targets could be aligned overall with those of the Assembly. A copy of the paper would be circulated by email to all for comment.
A short proforma aimed at stimulating discussion on the day would be an integral part of the paper posing some questions on priority groups and targets. Delegates would be asked to complete the proforma and bring it along on the day. Robert Pickard pointed out that it was important to acknowledge the contribution every delegate would be making to the process and that a note to this effect should be made in the record of the day
ACTION: Secretariat
5. Future workshops
i. Priority group: the socially disadvantaged
- 21 November 2001, The Metropole Hotel, Llandrindod Wells, Powys
ii. Priority group : infants, children and young people- 3 December 2001, The Village Hotel, Coryton , Cardiff
Thoughts and ideas were sought on the format, speakers and invitees for the two other workshops planned before the end of the year. That these workshops needed to be more participative than the first was agreed by all and there was a strong case for individual group sessions to be split according to discipline/expertise. The steering group also recognised that these priority groups were not necessarily mutually exclusive e.g. a teenage Mum might also be a priority in the infant, children and young persons group.
Names of potential speakers and invitees to the various workshops proposed were noted. The Secretariat will now follow up some of these contacts.
Phil Morgan agreed to speak to colleagues in FSA HQ in an effort to identify a speaker representing one of the Scandinavian countries, which has successfully implemented a nutrition strategy.
ACTION: Secretariat
6. AOB
Robert Pickard is Chair of the Advisory Committee for Wales' nutrition sub-group and he extended an invitation to the steering group to join his sub-group. He plans to set up a networking system to enable concerns on nutrition issues to be fed in to the Advisory Committee for Wales meetings. In this way members of the steering group could become a conduit to feed into ACW.
Ginny Blakey was pleased to report that Dr Jo Clarkson, a nutritionist, would be taking up the post of Nutrition and Physical Activity Specialist in Health Promotion Division on 8 October.
Hilary Neathey
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