Bottom up health care is absolutely the right way. If you are trying to prevent illness and injury in everyone then you are treating and caring for no one. It is a way of taking your eye off the ball, as it were.
So I am a bit concerned that the function of these Health Wellbeing Boards may be hobbled by the Department of Health and Social Care.
It's just that, in my experience, the central government is not good at empowering local authorities to decide how resources are allocated, and that new initiatives often originate in London and then percolate down to the provinces.
My fear is that Health and Wellbeing Boards will turn out to be an expensive talking shop to allow local politicians, and their officials, to feel ‘involved’.
For instance, I think it's true that NHS England used evidence collected by Healthwatch (and others) to justify their Primary Care Recovery Plan, which it will expect Integrated Care Boards to implement (with the cooperation, of course, with Health Wellbeing Boards).
It's a very unwieldy and expensive system which, I fear, is designed to protect the Minister and their officials from criticism.
Bottom up health care is absolutely the right way. If you are trying to prevent illness and injury in everyone then you are treating and caring for no one. It is a way of taking your eye off the ball, as it were.
So I am a bit concerned that the function of these Health Wellbeing Boards may be hobbled by the Department of Health and Social Care.
It's just that, in my experience, the central government is not good at empowering local authorities to decide how resources are allocated, and that new initiatives often originate in London and then percolate down to the provinces.
My fear is that Health and Wellbeing Boards will turn out to be an expensive talking shop to allow local politicians, and their officials, to feel ‘involved’.
For instance, I think it's true that NHS England used evidence collected by Healthwatch (and others) to justify their Primary Care Recovery Plan, which it will expect Integrated Care Boards to implement (with the cooperation, of course, with Health Wellbeing Boards).
It's a very unwieldy and expensive system which, I fear, is designed to protect the Minister and their officials from criticism.