As a CCG, we have already taken responsibility for much of the health budget and are well underway in developing this expertise further during this "shadow" year, with full responsibility coming later in 2012/13.
Blackburn with Darwen is also well ahead in developing it's Health and Wellbeing Board (HWBB) into which the CCG will play a crucial role.
The HWBB being the statutory body, which brings together health organisations together with the council and it's related social care organisations, to challenge the improvements that are being made to the lives of local citizens.
There are three HWBBs in Lancashire with one of them being at a Blackburn with Darwen level and so this was another important factor in having a local CCG at this level.
The health challenges that we face in Blackburn with Darwen are considerable and when you consider that we have the third worst life expectancy of anywhere in England you see the enormity of the work needed. Importantly, this does not relate to the quality of the health and social care services provided but to the underlying social problems facing the area including poverty (average household income one of the lowest in England), poor school educational attainment and housing and worklessness.
It is when you consider these underlying, deep rooted causes that you start to understand the need to treat the causes and not the symptoms of diseases. It is for this reason that we are exploring new ways of connecting the work done by the local council and that done by health and we are receiving national interest around this. David Cameron himself recently pledged to bring together, or integrate, health and social care so we are seemingly setting out on the right foot.
One of the very specific areas in which the link between the council and the forming CCG is related to engaging with the wider public and we are looking very closely at using the neighbourhood forums that are currently in use by the council to start bringing forward discussions related to health issues direct to the public.
