The National Health Service is at a critical time in its history.
Life expectancy has improved significantly over recent years whilst technology in the health care field is advancing at an exponential rate and expectations are understandably higher than they once were.
Although living longer, people are, on average, spending a greater proportion of their lives in ill health and dependency than was previously the case. This is clearly putting a greater burden on financial and human resources to help look after the most vulnerable in our communities.
NHS England has set up 43 Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships across the whole of England to address how best to allocate Health and Social Care resource in the light of the above challenges.
This gives those Councils with the responsibility for Health Scrutiny a unique opportunity.
The Overview function of scrutiny committees is often lost within the scrutiny function but with the STP format dealing with the current challenges, this allows Scrutiny Committees to take a more thematic approach and contribute to the debate concerning what future services should look like as well as their traditional scrutiny role.
I think this is an exciting time for Health Scrutiny.
This video features a live webinar with Keith Willett, Director of Acute Care, NHS, Cllr Richard Kemp, Liverpool City Council and Deputy Chair of the LGA Community and Wellbeing Board and myself providing a clinicians guide to local government scrutiny.
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