Posts from — July 2010

A new policy and approach to tackling inequalities in public health and wellbeing across Staffordshire… 

It was a good committee session, which you can see by clicking the video capture, during which I was questioned for two hours on the way we plan to tackle some of the most pressing health issues which not only ruin lives but cost hundreds of millions of pounds to the public purse here in Staffordshire.

The Staffordshire Public Health policy which I inherited from Labour expired four months ago and I was presented with an updated version to sign off at that time.

But although it was a high quality attractive document it seemed pretty insular to me and I couldn’t figure out how it would dramatically counter the poor state of general health and wellbeing of some of the population in Staffordshire.

Some things such as smoking, childhood obesity and unhealthily heavy drinking are issues across a wide spectrum of people. And in some specific geographical areas and socio-economic groups it is even more prevalent and those same cohorts often have lower life expectancy as well as an alarming level of infant mortality.  

The strategy that officials were asking me to approve was weak on aspiration and it seemed to me that if we did almost nothing over the coming years on the public health agenda we’d broadly meet what the document was about, such was its lack of substance. 

Labour’s legacy in Staffordshire… broadly going through the motions, ticking some boxes, not excelling and not utterly failing was the thrust of what was presented to me. 

So, I didn’t accept it and we are now in the midst of developing a new Strategy which has tougher expectations and will hold each part of the public sector firmly to account like never before on meeting their responsibilities.  And with a very strong overarching approach to ensuring all agencies have the same focus and priorities it is different to anything Staffordshire has seen in the past.

It’s about having high expectations for our county and its people, being clear and realistic about what we can affect in the long, medium and short term and, on the latter, using those shorter term successes to provide motivation toward the more difficult and generational outcomes.

And I’m delighted to say that officials are shaking off  ‘the Labour way’. There’s genuine passion and determination creeping in with greater aspiration and clearer vision.

With the Health Committee stage now completed, the next eight weeks will see further refinements to the Public Health and Wellbeing Strategy with Staffordshire’s Cabinet due to accept it as formal policy in October.

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A very short post on this extraordinary project because, broadly speaking, I’ve said it all before…

But still worth it because this has grown from an idea in a local man’s mind to something which is genuinely spectacular and ‘owned’ by hundreds of people.

Vegetables a plenty as the number of of allotments increases at Elford

There are numerous posts on my site about the Elford Walled Garden Restoration project and how a group of forty or so people from Elford and the surrounding area have taken a run down, derelict, historic garden and house and turned it into something very special.

I’m proud to be Patron of the Gardens Restoration and every time I go there it means more and more as progress hastens… and hastened again, it has. Yet another tranformation since I last went there, last, eight weeks ago with fully planted allotments, a very large village events area and the house largely refurbished with a new roof and extensive internal plastering.

And they really take care with things. Yes, they do buy some things of course. But wherever possible, where trussies are needed, they make them from scratch and where there’s specialist pieces or skills required they get on and build them or learn how to.

So hugely impressive and the plans for its use, both locally, and wider to be of use to older people and the young who have specialist needs is absolutely right.

Sensory garden, tranquility area and other innovative ideas are likely, knowing this lot, to turn into reality.

Worth a visit and also worth becoming a ‘Friend‘ no matter where you live… it is our history and heritage after all.

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The Health White Paper provides challenges, risks and opportunities for better health and care service here…

But, as long as there is an obsessive focus on better health outcomes for Staffordshire people and not on artificial Health organisational issues which could re-create many smaller PCTs in all but name, the opportunities will be greater.

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Full County Council on the road visiting Newcastle Borough Council

The key changes the proposals bring are moving health commissioning responsibility from existing Primary Care Trusts to GPs and moving the budget and responsibility around Public Health to Counties and Unitary local government.

It’s bigger than it sounds. There are currently three PCTs in Staffordshire, one for the southern six districts, one for the two northern districts and one for Stoke with a combined total spend of around £1.6billion.

The County has been working in earnest for ten months to bring together community NHS services with social care services across Staffordshire.

That will mean significant improvements, efficiency wise and, most importantly, to the parity and quality of healthcare services across the whole county and the work to do that is ongoing and will be completed in the next nine months.

The demise of the three PCTs by 2013 and the move of well over a billion pound health commissioning money to doctors in the community is huge. The County already has a successful Joint Commissioning Unit which brings together the NHS and Social Care commissioning to maximise efficiencies and align much better the provision of services.

Clearly, it is important that we continue the same principles under the new arrangements. How we do that and how we can support GPs in their new role whilst ensuring the joint approach between care and health deepens has been, and will be, the subject of dozens of hours of talks.

And why does greater collaboration matter? Well, because high quality social care services prevent many people going into high cost acute services (hospitals) and also get people out faster if they are in hospital.

It’s partly about money and partly about the quality of life and future prospects for individuals. In every aspect it makes sense.

I’ll be writing far more about this whole agenda as things move on and as negotiations take place over the summer. It’s hugely important for Staffordshire and the people who live and work here. I’ll also write about the Public Health changes which, again, will potentially enhance what we are already doing around things such as obesity and alcohol abuse.

So, a very busy time which is going to get even busyer. 

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As Staffordshire cuts costs, unelected Police Authority ‘bods’ choose bureaucracy over front line services…

Just amazing, particularly because under Government plans in 18 months time Staffordshire Police Authority will be scrapped completely.

And so the thick end of £100k annual salary for a brand new Police Authority Chief Exec seems extraordinary just as they are looking to cut front line services by disbanding the motorcycle police unit.

Non-elected independents & Liberal Democrats outvote Conservatives

This despite protests from Conservatives on the Police Authority. And the fact the CXO will only be around until the demise of Staffordshire Police Authority means they’ll likely be a second decent severance payout in due course.

Until a couple of years ago the Police Authority was administered, on a relative shoestring, by the County and the CXO then was the County’s Chief Officer on a very part time basis. Not so now, as recently the Police Authority has grown in admin and massively in costs.

The County even offered to have Staffordshire’s Chief Officer cover the interim for the Police Authority as in the past but no. This was debated by the County today and every Party but the Liberal Democrats were utterly appalled at the likely scrapping of the police motor cycles in favour of a new and expensive bureaucrat.

To be clear, this is public money being wasted by unelected Police Authority appointees despite Staffordshire as a whole being run by Conservatives. Nonsense.

Financial crisis… what crisis?

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