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Press Release

LGA responds to Health and Social Care Bill

19 January 2011

Responding to the Health and Social Care Bill, Cllr David Rogers, Chairman of the Local Government Association's Community Wellbeing Board, said:

"The Government health reforms will fundamentally alter the landscape of healthcare and pose significant challenges for delivery. We are pleased to see many of local government's consultation proposals seem to have been included in this bill.

"However, it is uncertain whether funding will be sufficient and we seek urgent clarification. It appears councils could receive less than the new central body Public Health England, but have much more responsibility. We will thoroughly scrutinise this bill to ensure it mirrors the Government's stated intention of freeing up councils and communities to decide how best to improve health and wellbeing locally, without needless interference from the centre.

"Town halls fought hard against plans to scrap separate health overview and scrutiny committees, and their arguments have hit home. Extending formal council scrutiny to cover all NHS-funded services is a positive move, as is the decision to give health and wellbeing boards powers to make sure NHS commissioners work together with town halls to improve the health of their communities. But involvement must extend through all tiers of local government, from district to unitary.

"Key to the reform's success is local leadership and accountability. Local government called for the new Health and Wellbeing Boards to be given teeth and put on a statutory footing and this appears to have happened, though we will keep pushing to make sure it becomes reality.

"Councils are concerned by the speed at which such complex reorganisation is being pushed through, that the new system may not be truly ready by 2013. That calls to speed up the introduction of wellbeing boards and phase in new GP consortia with pilot schemes have been acted on is reassuring. And the move to make GP commissioning decisions more transparent can only be a good thing."



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