Health and care leaders publish draft plan for a Healthier Future in Pennine Lancashire

Health and care leaders in Pennine Lancashire have today published a draft plan for health and care services in the area.

The draft plan is a blueprint to improve the health of people living in Pennine Lancashire (which covers Blackburn with Darwen and East Lancashire), as well as improving health and care services in the area.

Graham Burgess, Chair of Blackburn with Darwen CCG and Chair of the Pennine Lancashire Accountable Health and Care Partnership said:

“We are proud of the health and care services we have in Pennine Lancashire. Our doctors, nurses, and wider health and care staff provide high quality care for people who live and work here. We are equally proud of our communities and how residents across the area come together to provide friendship, encouragement and support to each other.

However people in Pennine Lancashire are more likely to experience ill health compared with people living in other parts of the country. We have high levels of deprivation, poor health outcomes and greater demand for health and care services. The good news is that we can prevent many of our illnesses and, by working together, we can help improve people’s health and wellbeing, whilst continuing to provide effective and efficient health and care services.

In planning Together A Healthier Future we want to harness everything that is good about Pennine Lancashire; our people, our communities, our volunteers, our open spaces and our services”

Over the last year, the Pennine Lancashire Accountable Health and Care Partnership, has been working with residents, volunteers, doctors, nurses, health and care professionals, community workers and others to develop its plans for change. During the summer, health and care bosses listened to what people have had to say about health and care services, and about how they can be supported to live healthily. As a result, a draft Pennine Plan has been developed which outlines a number of innovative and exciting proposals designed to improve the health and wellbeing of people who live and work in the area.

Dr Phil Huxley, local GP, Chair of East Lancashire CCG and Chair of the Pennine Lancashire Care Professionals board said:

“The draft plan is a discussion document from us to the people of Pennine Lancashire. It is a document packed with ideas and proposals, which include some really positive innovations and developments that we hope to introduce in the area. I appreciate that there is a lot of detail but would welcome it if people took the chance to read it as we want to know what people think about these ideas.

As a GP I am really pleased with this plan as it sets out how we can make our services the best that they can be. Our doctors, nurses, pharmacies and other health care professionals can work better together in our neighbourhoods and we can improve hospital and urgent care services by providing more support in communities.

We can do all of this, but we need everyone’s help to make this work. We need everyone to look after their own health as much as they can, to make healthy choices in their lives, use services appropriately and support their families and friends to live healthy lives. Only by doing this will we all be able to achieve a Healthier Future”.

The draft Pennine Plan is available here.

We also have a summary of the Pennine Plan.

You may be interested to read our easy read version of the Pennine Plan version.

We would be delighted to receive your views about this draft plan and we welcome any comments you may have. Please complete our online survey at: www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/DraftPenninePlanSurvey.

If you represent a community group or network we would also be delighted to come and talk to you about your plans. To arrange this please email us at elccg.togetherahealthierfuture@nhs.net and we will arrange a presentation and discussion.

* The Pennine Lancashire Accountable Health and Care Partnership Leaders’ Forum (PLF) is the group of senior leaders from key organisations who are responsible for overseeing the Together A Healthier Future Transformation Programme. The Forum consists of the chief officers and chairs/leaders of the six statutory health and care organisations that constitute the Transformation Programme, which are East Lancashire Clinical Commissioning Group (ELCCG), Blackburn with Darwen Clinical Commissioning Group (BwDCCG), East Lancashire Hospitals Trust (ELHT), Lancashire Care Foundation Trust (LCFT), Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council (BwDBC) and Lancashire County Council (LCC). The Forum also involves senior leaders from a number of key, co-opted, organisations including District Councils, the Voluntary, Community and Faith Sector, and local GP Federations.

The draft Pennine document is part of the Local Delivery Partnership for Pennine Lancashire. This has been produced by Together A Healthier Future, which is the the accountable health and care partnership for Pennine Lancashire.

Pennine Lancashire is one of five local partnerships which make up Healthier Lancashire and South Cumbria, the Sustainability and Transformation Partnership. The other areas are Morecambe Bay, Blackpool and the Fylde Coast, Central Lancashire and West Lancashire. Each of these five areas faces challenges, some are unique to a specific area and others are collective challenges faced across the whole of Lancashire and South Cumbria.