Congress report - European Health Forum Gastein

36
European Health Forum Gastein 2001
• To improve our performance in the maintenance, protection and promotion of
health;
• To ensure that all we do contributes significantly to population health improvement
and the quality of life of our citizens;
• To tackle inequalities in health and inequalities in access to health care and
support.
Life-long investment for health is one of the vehicles that will carry us along the road to
health improvement and will help diminish health inequalities. This demands that we adopt
strategies for investment which cover the life course and are targeted at those transitions
where health risk to individuals is the greatest. Such strategies will provide a new balance
between the protection and promotion of health and well-being and the treatment of disease
and ill health.
We base this approach on our valuable learning from the groundbreaking Verona Initiative
and the clear need to have cohesive and holistic public policy in our communities. As you
will see this approach is straight out of the World Health Organisation’s text books. We
have seen that across Europe, the need for this action is not new and has been well
documented in the literature relating to Investment for Health . As it says: “We instinctively
recognise the need. But for this to be taken seriously and lead to action existing structures,
habits and thinking must change. New skills will be needed. Change is difficult and the
forces of inertia are strong. But the potential benefits are enormous.”
We have decided that the National Assembly for Wales and our NHS must be champions of
this cause and must work with our partners to engender a new determination to improve the
health and well being of the people of Wales. We have learned a great deal from our
involvement in the Verona Initiative and our approaches have been much influenced by the
multi national discourse that Verona made possible. Wales is keen to continue to be
involved in this and similar initiatives and we are sure that our experience in the massive
programme of change I have described will add to the shared pool of knowledge, so
valuable in helping us to learn and develop. We also see our membership of the WHO
Regions for Health Network as very important.
To enhance health and well-being, the NHS in Wales must be seen to be owned by the
people of Wales and the voice of patients, their families and the public at large. This will
involve greater attention to building user-centred services and citizen-centred policies. We
seek to engage the public as partners, finding new and more effective ways of doing this.
We are determined that Communities become key players in the definition of health needs
and the identification of solutions.
The health and well-being agenda is not just the business of the NHS. To make inroads into
the legacy of ill health and to promote health, requires that the NHS - in concert with local
government and the voluntary sector – establishes joint planning mechanisms, joint scrutiny
of the health agenda and joint working. We have many examples of good practice in joint
working in Wales which will act as exemplars.
We have 22 City and County Councils in Wales and over the last two years each has formed
a Health Alliance of a wide range of statutory, non-governmental, independent and business
organisations to identify health issues in their communities and to find ways, in partnership
to deal with them. These have developed well but we now intend to introduce a new
statutory responsibility that requires Local Government and the NHS to formally enter a
Strategic Partnership to produce and implement Health and well-being Plans for their local
populations. They will be required to engage with the whole community and will use Health
International Forum Gastein, Tauernplatz 1, A-5630 Bad Hofgastein
Tel.: +43 (6432) 7110-70, Fax: Ext. 71, e-mail: info@ehfg.org, website: www.ehfg.org