HEALTH bosses have outlined their priorities for Ellesmere Port & Neston over the next decade.
Western Cheshire Primary Care Trust (PCT) wants to address demand from a growing elderly population, as well as helping more people overcome illness, addictions and mental health problems.
Their strategy was unveiled at the same time as a Cheshire-wide report on health care, which outlines inequalities across the county.
Wendy Meredith, director of public health for the PCT and also the county council, said that Transforming Health and Health Care: A Strategy to Improve Health and Health Care Services in Western Cheshire 2007-2017 sets out practical steps they will take to treat ill-health and help people live more healthily.
Over the next 10 years, the population in Ellesmere Port & Neston, Chester and Vale Royal is expected to fall by about 4,500.
But there will be proportionately more people aged 65-80 and fewer children.
Some of the priorities in the strategy are:
Ensuring children’s services are responsive to their needs,
Ensuring all services reflect the needs of local communities, and health, education, housing, and social care is well co-ordinated in the most deprived areas,
Reducing levels of teenage pregnancy and improving choices available to mothers when they need maternity services,
Improving mental health services to meet increasing levels of depression and anxiety, especially in the elderly,
Making it easier for people to see a GP, dentist, pharmacist or optometrist during working hours, and getting help with urgent problems out-of-hours,
Providing better education and services for people abusing alcohol and drugs,
Fighting smoking and obesity by educating people more and providing more services,
Cutting waiting times for diagnostic tests and hospital services,
Keeping older people healthy by helping them stay fit and mobile, avoid falls and rehabilitate them following times of ill-health,
Improving services for long-term conditions such as heart disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and for those who have had a stroke,
Ensuring services are of high quality and safe, and reducing health care-associated infections,
Improving cancer services so people get a rapid diagnosis and the treatment they need when they need it,
Ensuring services for people in the last years of their lives are co-ordinated and effective.
Meanwhile, the newly-published Cheshire Public Health Report 2006/2007 shows that people’s overall health in the county is similar to the England average but striking inequalities exist at a community level.
It sets out the health challenges facing the county and the steps people can take in partnership with the NHS and other organisations, not only to live longer but enjoy more years of life living in good health.
The report covers children and young people’s health, life expectancy and premature mortality, safeguarding the health of older people by preventing falls, alcohol misuse, and how waste can be managed to safeguard a sustainable future for Cheshire.
It calls for renewed efforts by the NHS and its partner organisations, such as local councils, to reduce the gap between those areas in Cheshire where people’s health mirrors the national average and those where health is poorer in terms of heart disease, stroke, cancer and respiratory disease.
But the report also urges residents to take responsibility for their own health by not smoking, eating better and taking more exercise so they can live longer and enjoy more years of good health.
For a copy of Cheshire Public Health Report 2006/2007 and Transforming Health and Health Care: A Strategy to Improve Health and Health Care Services in Western Cheshire 2007-2017, visit www.wcheshirepct.nhs.uk and follow the links on the News Page.
