Telford misses out on health pioneer scheme

Officials will be seeking reasons why Telford & Wrekin Council failed to get a spot among the 43 places in the first phase of a national £10 million pioneer scheme to take health services to a more local level.

The Government announced earlier this month that Shropshire had secured a place in the first phase of a National Neighbourhood Health Implementation Program but Telford and Wrekin was not selected.

David Sidaway, Telford & Wrekin Council’s chief executive told a meeting: “Although disappointed that Telford didn’t secure that work we’re delighted that Shropshire have.”

But he added that it is “interesting” that the main factor has been around “deprivation”.

Mr Sidaway told fellow members of the NHS Shropshire Telford and Wrekin (NHS STW) integrated care board (ICB) that he had previously worked in Stoke-on-Trent, which had also lost out.

The council’s chief admitted to being “a bit lost” why the borough’s bid had failed but he said the ICB officials “will be looking for feedback as to why”.

Reports to the board’s meeting on Wednesday (September 24) also heard that the work of taking health services into neighbourhoods in Telford is continuing anyway.

The ICB has granted £333,000 to neighbourhood projects across Telford and Wrekin.

A committee called TWIPP – the Telford and Wrekin Integrated Place Partnership – has approved delivery of seven neighbourhood health prevention and inequalities initiatives.

These initiatives are for borough-wide programmes and targeted interventions in deprived neighbourhoods.

These include roll-out of the Live Well Hubs, healthy conversations campaigns, the expansion of Calm Cafés, Care Navigators for autistic people and individuals with learning disabilities, group lifestyle clinics in primary care and the Healthy Hearts Community Outreach.

Mr Sidaway said the council is “delighted to be doing that work as it is what place-based approach should be doing”.

“It’s the right thing to do, the concept of place is everything.”

Nigel Lee, NHS STW’s chief strategy officer, said the move to neighbourhood services is “utterly pivotal in how we want to wrap services round residents”.

His report to the board said two place-based applications had been submitted in August to be part of the first phase of the National Neighbourhood Health Implementation Programme, one for Shropshire and one for Telford and Wrekin.

Mr Lee’s report to the board said the “strong” applications focused on tackling health inequalities, with particular emphasis on rurality and specific health issues.

“All key system stakeholder partners provided written CEO level confirmation of their support of our applications and the programme,” his report reads.

Support came from councils, local NHS providers, nine primary care network directors, pharmacy, dental and optometry, the voluntary sector, Healthwatch, the fire service and the police.

But Mr Lee’s report said they had been notified on September 9 that “we had been successful for the Shropshire application, but unfortunately not for our Telford and Wrekin application”.

“Importantly, we will work across both places to optimise the learning from the programme across STW,” his report told the board.