Gary Wallace (Public Health Specialist) and Ruth Harrell (Director of Public Health) delivered a presentation on the ‘Plymouth Health Determinants Research Collaborative’ (PHDRC), and highlighted the following points-

a)    The PHDRC was a 5 year project between Plymouth City Council (PCC), the University of Plymouth (UoP) and the Plymouth Octopus Project, funded at £4.7 MM by the National Institute of Health Research;

b)    The project had started in October 2022, and focused on facilitating and building capacity for research, to ensure evidence based decision-making was undertaken;

c)    While PCC already extensively utilised appreciative enquiry and research based decision-making, this partnership would enable broader research to inform service provision and targeting, thus ensuring maximum effectiveness.  The partnership helped analyse and overcome the complex interconnected factors affecting health and wellbeing, rather than treating each issue in isolation;

d)    As part of the collaboration, PCC were currently working to develop partnership agreements, oversight and governance strategies, communication plans, evaluation and success measurement criteria, consultation, and recruitment;

e)    It was anticipated that this research could have early, positive impacts for informing the commissioning of services however, there were considerable challenges to overcome regarding ‘ethics’ of research, with a need to develop an ethical process which did not infringe on the right of the council to engage with its citizens.

Following questions, the Board discussed-

f)     The PHDRC would be regularly reporting into the ‘Change Board’ and would provide an annual summary of their work to the Health and Wellbeing Board;

The Board agreed-

1.    To receive an annual update from the ‘Plymouth Health Determinants Research Collaborative’ (PHDRC);

2.    To note the report.