Dudley Strategy for Tackling Health Inequalities 2010-15

A Community Renewal team which coordinates agency and communityactivity in identified neighbourhoods, with a focus on deprivation. This hasresulted in considerable joint working between all partners at a neighbourhoodlevel, and has led to improvements in basic „place‟ based issues such ascrime, the environment and housing. Local communities are now, in general,ready to move on to addressing „people‟ based issues such as health,education, skills and jobs.NHS Dudley‟s Public Health teams and the Council‟s Community Renewalteam are in the early stages of developing Neighbourhood Health Plans.These will provide a very focussed and coordinated approach to addressinghealth inequalities in localised areas and will help to maximise the capacity ofpartner agencies to deliver against the priorities identified.In addition:Health inequalities will now feature on the Overview and Scrutiny agenda andperformance against health inequalities targets will be reported to this groupwhen a new performance framework has been agreed.Consideration is being given to appointing a lead member for healthinequalities. Dudley PCT has identified a post for a GP Champion for „stayinghealthy‟.The new Chief Executive of the Dudley Group of Hospitals Foundation Trustwill take forward the health promoting role of the hospital and take a positiverole in reducing health inequalities.Dudley has a strong tradition of partnership working and is well placed to tackle thehealth inequalities that exist within the borough. However, recent changes introducedby the new coalition government and substantial budget cuts will present futurechallenges, and changing circumstances may impact on agencies priorities andactivities. This comes at a time when strengthening partnership arrangements evenfurther is necessary to maximise the potential for tackling health inequalities.The Health Inequalities National Support Team that visited in July 2009 recognisedthe strength of partnership working in the borough, but identified a need tostrengthen leadership across the partnership, including the engagement of electedmembers and non-executive directors.The Transforming Community Services agenda and the transfer of public healthfunctions to the Local Authority also present key challenges in relation to redefiningand clarifying responsibilities and accountabilities and (re)building trustingrelationships.GPs have always had a role to play in addressing health inequalities as practitioners,community leaders and commissioners. With new responsibilities for commissioning,close partnership working arrangements between GP consortia and local authorities54