Inventing our future Collective action for a sustainable economy

3) Delivery processes for local and sub-regional priorities
9.8 Finally, we envisage a number of local/sub-regional delivery processes playing important roles. LSPs and
emerging Local Area Agreements are one key part of the delivery process at a local scale. Local Area
Agreements are being advanced across much of the Region. They are structured across four funding
blocks: children and young people, safer and stronger communities, economic development and
enterprise, and healthier communities and older people. All four resonate with the Themes and
Strategic Priorities identified in Healthy Futures and the read-across is, intentionally, strong. In
addition, by influencing service delivery, Investing in Communities Partnerships will also
form an important element of the delivery process at a sub-regional scale.
Health and Social Inclusion Panel, and Monitoring Progress
9.9 The East of England Regional Assembly’s Health and Social Inclusion Panel will contribute to the
delivery of Healthy Futures through its advocacy and influencing roles. It will be important that
clear mechanisms are used to communicate with local and sub-regional partnerships. In seeking
to disseminate the Strategy, it may want to consider producing a children-friendly version that
can communicate effectively with children and their families.
9.10 The Health and Social Inclusion Panel will monitor progress with regard to the delivery of the Strategy.
Monitoring will take place at two levels:
• First, progress on the delivery of individual Actions identified in the Strategy will be reviewed
on a regular basis. Given the emphasis on influencing wider delivery processes, the precise
impacts of individual Actions will be difficult to isolate. However, where relevant and appropriate,
the effectiveness of Actions will be assessed, primarily in order to build up a body of evidence as
to how and where regional interventions can add serious value
• Second, steps will be taken to monitor the changing state of the Region’s health. The Strategy
will have some – but very limited – influence on the headline indicators. Nevertheless, the Health
and Social Inclusion Panel will want to be assured that the Strategy – and the Actions developed
within it – is aligned with changing health needs.
The proposal is that the changing state of the Region’s health will be monitored through an
aggregation of Community Health Profiles. Provision for these was made in Choosing Health:
the commitment was that Profiles should be prepared by Public Health Observatories on an annual
basis using a common set of indicators for each Local Authority District. The first set of profiles will
be published in 2006. It should be possible to aggregate the data for individual districts to derive an
overall Health Profile of the Region and then to refresh this annually. This resource will be invaluable
in terms of monitoring changes in the health of people across the East of England.
9.11 Overall – and through these different mechanisms – the Health and Social Inclusion Panel will want
to be assured that Actions are being delivered and that wider processes are being influenced and
supported in a way that contributes to achieving the Vision set out in Healthy Futures – namely,
improvements in health and reductions in inequalities in health across the East of England over
the period to 2010 and beyond.
A Regional Health Strategy for the East of England 119