Select Committee visits Kent to look at the role of local authorities in health issues

Key progress on health reforms in Kent was the subject at a special meeting last week when a Government Select Committee visited to discuss the role of local authorities in health issues - including leading work moving forward in Dover and Shepway Districts.

The House of Commons Community and Local Government Select Committee visited Maidstone on 28 November, and a range of people spoke to them about the role of local authorities in health issues, including representatives from Kent County Council, Dover District Council and the South Kent Coast Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG).

Paul Watkins, Leader of Dover District Council, and local GP Dr Chaudhuri presented evidence of how well local partners are working together to improve health outcomes and services for local people. The Select Committee heard how Dover and Shepway District Councils, together with the South Kent Coast CCG, KCC and other partners are the first to establish a local level Health and Wellbeing Board in Kent (as a sub committee of the county-wide Health and Wellbeing Board), and one of only a handful nationally. The Board is known as the South Kent Coast Health and Wellbeing Board, and covers GP practices based in Dover and Shepway. The Board has received lots of interest and praise for the way partnership working and relationships between health, social care, district and county councils have been developed.

Cllr Paul Watkins, Leader of DDC and Chair of the South Kent Coast HWBB said: "Local council services have a wide ranging effect on people's health and wellbeing. By working with our health and social care partners, KCC and voluntary and community groups, we can start to bring all of our information and services together to address the real health needs of residents, and to influence and adapt service provision. We have already identified the requirement for a needs assessment of intermediate care beds at Buckland, and we are moving forward with a range of innovative projects in the district. We will continue to address health and wellbeing issues for our communities."

Dr Chaudhuri said: "From the outset of the original Health and Social Care Bill in 2010, we have been working with our District Council colleagues to look at trying something different and unique, to enhance the role of GPs in commissioning services for patients, and to look at how we enhance the role of local authorities. The South Kent Coast HWBB is very much about how we change the system so more people are enabled to take control of their health outcomes, with the full support of services delivered by the right health professional in the right place at the right time for the patient."