30.06.15
NHSCC and LGA push for new roles for health & wellbeing boards
NHS Clinical Commissioners (NHSCC) and the Local Government Association (LGA) have come together in attempt to drive forward the development of health and wellbeing boards (HWBs).
The two organisations have produced a new report, Making It Better Together, aimed at HWB members, local commissioners, and the government, pushing for HWBs to “significantly ramp up the scale of ambition so they can take on effective system leadership and support the decision making process of health and care for patients and local populations”.
Cllr Izzi Seccombe, chair of the LGA Community Wellbeing Board, writes in the document’s forward: “We believe that health and wellbeing boards provide a genuine opportunity to develop a place-based, preventative approach to commissioning health and care services, improving health and tackling health inequalities and the wider determinants of health.
“We know that new models of health and care are desperately needed and we believe that health and wellbeing boards have an important contribution to make.
“They have already begun to develop their role as local system leaders, but with the right commitment and support they can go much further. They can provide the foundations on which wider devolution of health and care and responsiveness to local needs can be built.”
The report says that within the existing arrangements HWBs can be the place for the local health and care system to come together to make key decisions and set shared strategies to progress local health and care priorities, tackle the prevention agenda and ensure all part of the system are working together, including housing, leisure and education.
Dr Steve Kell, co-chair of NHSCC, said: “Our members have consistently told us that they need space and stability to develop existing local structures – avoiding any change to current legislation – and to allow them the space to let the relationships with partners grow into strong local system leadership with a focus on better outcomes for our patients and local populations.
“If Health and Wellbeing Boards are to be judged in the future, then it should be on the health of their populations rather than the workings of their structures.”
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