Plans to create a new health and wellbeing board have been approved by the Care Trust Plus and Blackburn with Darwen Council.
The board, which will replace the Local Strategic Partnership’s health and well being partnership board, will be run by the Council and will operate in shadow form alongside the Care Trust Plus board from January until the Care Trust ceases to exist in April 2013.
The establishment of local authority run health and well being boards to promote partnership working between the NHS, social care, public health and other services was one of the requirements of the NHS White Paper published earlier this year.
From 2013, some functions of the existing health overview and scrutiny committee will transfer to the health and well being board and independent scrutiny will become the responsibility of the Council’s executive board of elected members.
Health and wellbeing board members are likely to include councillors, GP consortia, NHS commissioners, patient and public champions, Health Watch members, the directors of public health, adults and children’s services, neighbourhood representatives and the voluntary sector. A chair would be nominated by elected members.
