Local Councils, Public Involvement and PH Priorities

Liam HughesNetworkidea

Outline of presentation

• The new landscape for councils and public services

• Prioritizing public health improvement• The Oldham story• Health and Wellbeing Boards• Building Health and Wellbeing Strategies• Example – “Warm Homes Oldham”

The new public services landscape

• Austerity – driver for change • New relationships across the public realm

- Public Service Reform - Health and Wellbeing Boards• New relationships between local people and

the local state• Public involvement – virtue and necessity!

• Size and scope of problem• Interdependencies of causes• Impact/cost-effectiveness• Strength of evidence• Impact on health and wellbeing• Speed of impact• Reducing health inequalities and• Public perspective (Kings Fund)

Prioritizing public health

The Oldham Story

• “Oldham is broken!”: – we need to fix it together!• A co-operative council and citizen

involvement: - design, implementation, evaluation• Devolution and district partnerships• Strong partnerships: – local and Greater Manchester

Involving local people- mechanisms

• Co-operative Commission• Public Services Board• 6 District Partnerships• 6 CCG Clusters• 4 Partnership Boards• Oldham Council and CCG• Voluntary Action Oldham

Involving Oldham People- methods

• On-line dialogue with council• Members as sounding-boards and champions• Surveys, focus groups, workshops, community

events, web events, rapid appraisal, ABCD…• Less well served groups (carers, mental ill

health, people out of touch with GPs…)• Partners and council together

Building the Health and Wellbeing Strategy

• Voluntary Action Oldham and VCF Partners• Health Commissions for Greater Manchester and

Oldham• Council and CCG priorities• JSNA and DPH reports• Stakeholder events • District partnerships• Healthwatch• The HWB Members

Oldham`s Health and Wellbeing Strategy

• Choosing the strategic framework: - people, places and PH practices• 3 phases of life-course: - best start in life - learning, living and working well - ageing well and later life care• 3 themes: - jobs/food/warm homes

Warm Homes Oldham- a joint investment agreement

• Identified as a major issue in all consultations: - 14000+ households• Strong evidence about what works for fuel

poverty – what about health?• Oldham Council, CCG and Oldham Housing

Investment Partnership: - £200k with incentives for year 2• Target 1000 people out of fuel poverty• Positive evaluation of ROI is emerging

Jobs and Food

Staying in work Growing foodReady for work CookingProcurement Eating well

(Working in catering)

Some issues for Boards• This is a complex, adaptive system• Choosing priorities is hard to do• Big ticket items gain widespread support,

less-common items are more difficult• Trade-offs and marginal decisions are

problematic and decommissioning is difficult• Reconciling people and places can be tricky• Is the HWB the agent for public involvement, or

should it work through existing mechanisms?