Manchester’s Health and Wellbeing Board has heard further details on how to make the city’s five year vision for health and social care a reality.
The vision – a locality plan called ‘A Healthier Manchester’ – details the transformation work needed to improve health outcomes across the city, and the steps required to ensure that happens.
It was first presented to the board in November (2015). Now, further steps have been taken towards its ambitions, with the go-ahead for a three-month engagement period from today, when people across Manchester will be asked for their views and ideas on how health and care services could be improved and more cost-effective. This information will then be used to inform the final version of the plan in April.
In November the Health and Wellbeing Board agreed the three main strategic elements within the plan, to be a single commissioning approach for the city, a single contract for out-of-hospital services comprising integrated teams of health, primary care and social care professionals based in the community and a single contract for commissioning hospital services – the single Manchester Hospital Service.
Overall, the plan promotes a major shift in how the city’s health and social care organisations (commissioners and providers) currently work – so that more emphasis is put on the ‘start’ of the system. This means putting a stronger approach on preventing people becoming ill, as well as providing support in the community to give people more control over their own health.
Alongside this, health and social care will join together in an unprecedented way for increased joint, or integrated, working. This will involve single, community-based teams of health, primary care and social care staff based in each of the 12 localities – or areas – across the city. This will help to join services up in a more holistic way with single point for patient assessment, care co-ordination, and a more proactive approach to ensuring patients get the right support, at the right time, in the right place.
These teams will work in partnership with local people: supporting them to be as independent as possible, while ensuring care is there for them when needed.
The three Manchester hospital trusts (Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust; Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust; University of South Manchester NHS Foundation Trust) will also build on their strong partnerships. This approach will build on optimising the clinical resources available in the city, strengthening clinical networks, and reducing unnecessary duplication. This is described as the Single Manchester Hospital Service.
Sir Richard Leese, Chair of Manchester’s Health and Wellbeing Board, said:
“Good health is key to ensuring that our residents can achieve their full potential and benefit from the wider, economic and growth plans for the city. It’s also key to reducing dependency and unlocking our community potential.
“Unfortunately, Manchester still has some of the worst health outcomes in the country, especially for stroke, cancer and heart disease. This is also at a time when our local services are experiencing increasing levels of demand, which are greater than our budgets, within an outdated and often fragmented system.
“The locality plan seeks to address these challenges. None of this will be easy, and it will involve the efforts of everyone who lives and works here. But, by 2021, we want to see our residents benefitting from a transformed, integrated health and social care system, which is both high in quality and financially sustainable.”
There will now be a three-month period where people will be asked for their views on how health and social care services in Manchester can be more efficient and save money. People will also be asked about how they can be helped to lead a healthier life and the things they want to do to improve both their health and wellbeing.
All the feedback will be analysed and used to help shape the final locality plan in April and future services.
Councillor Paul Andrews, Executive Member for Adults, Health and Wellbeing at Manchester City Council, said: “We not only invite people’s input into this work, but we also need and value it. The five-year vision is one that will affect us all and we must focus on a common goal of a healthier Manchester. There is much work to be done and it’s a journey that we should all be part of, especially over the next three months before a final plan is produced.”
Manchester residents will be able to see a summary of the locality plan ‘A Healthier Manchester’ in their local GP surgery and other public venues throughout the city. The summary, which is also available on line at www.manchesterccgs.nhs.uk, includes a Freepost survey at the end. The full locality plan is available on the same link.
