Issue - meetings

This report provides an update on the work of the Access to Food Partnership, which helps to support residents experiencing food insecurity across Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole. It shares the Partnership’s vision, strategy and desired outcomes in order to seek advice and constructive feedback from the Health & Wellbeing Board.  Whilst this issue existed pre Covid, the report highlights how the scale of the problem has been exacerbated due to the pandemic. The Partnership wishes to discuss how it can better engage and connect with the Board as part of the wider systems approach and work on this priority theme.

The Board received a report, a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and which appears as Appendix 'A' to these Minutes in the Minute Book.

The report provided an update on the work of the Access to Food Partnership, which helps to support residents experiencing food insecurity across Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole. It shared the Partnership’s vision, strategy and desired outcomes and sought advice and constructive feedback from the Health & Wellbeing Board.  Whilst this issue existed pre Covid, the report highlighted how the scale of the problem had been exacerbated due to the pandemic. The Partnership wished to discuss how it can better engage and connect with the Board as part of the wider systems approach and work on this priority theme.

Alistair Doxat-Purser the Chair of Access to Food Partnership gave a presentationon how the Board can support the programme, a copy of the presentation was attached to the report.  He introduced Amy Gallagher from the BCP Council Communities team and Michelle Smith from the Public Health Team and referred to Daisy Carr, who was BCP Council’s Community Food Network Co-ordinator and thanked her for the huge amount of work that she had undertaken over the past year on the project. 

The Board was referred to the summary report in the agenda pack which set out the activities which had been undertaken in year one together with an outline action plan for the coming year.  The Board was advised that the aim of the presentation was to provide the headlines in respect of the journey so far and to highlight five areas where the Board’s support was sought on the programme and to work with the Board on eliminating food insecurity.

Alistair Doxat-Purser reported that the Dorset Hidden Hunger Conference was held in 2019 which had been sponsored by the sustainable food city network and Public Health Dorset. He explained that one of the key findings was that 46% of people in Dorset were not spending enough to eat a healthy diet and a quarter of people were in food crisis or unable to afford healthy food.  The Board was advised that in 2020 there was a massive upscale of need as the Covid-19 pandemic hit and there was some fantastic grass roots creativity including communities providing hot meals for those in most need, food banks developed a range of other options including access to kitchen equipment, new community pantries, allotments and schools were linked in with food settings and there was a WhatsApp group sharing excess food so it was not going to waste.  Mr Doxat-Purser reported on the development of the Access to Food Map which was now public and had received 6,500 hits.

Alistair Doxat-Purser outlined the key issues which the Partnership was asking for the Board’s support as detailed below:

• Championing the issue
• Crisis and Recovery Pathways
• Joint Approach to Prevention
• Capacity building
• Keep the momentum 

Mr Doxat-Purser referred to the proposal for a champion and that a report be submitted  ...  view the full minutes text for item 83