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Search forCall for action over city health targets
Saturday, June 28, 2008, 07:00
John Richards, chief executive of NHS commissioning body Plymouth Primary Care Trust (PCT), said the city is 'in the red' on important health-related targets.
They include smoking rates in deprived areas and among pregnant women, alcohol intervention for young people, mental health service users entering work and emergency bed days, he said.
The goals are part of 29 agreed in 2006 by the council, health bodies and other agencies in the local strategic partnership (LSP), Plymouth 2020. They set out the city's main priorities between 2007 and 2010.
If the 'stretch targets' (agreed voluntarily and above national averages) are achieved, local authorities receive cash rewards from central government.
However, Mr Richards told The Herald some targets had been set on the basis of wrong information and achieving them would be like “climbing Mount Everest”.
Mr Richards said unless action is taken, the city could lose £2.7 million in grants, but the real cost would be in “human misery”. He told Thursday's PCT board meeting he had “grim news” from this week's LSP executive meeting.
“I had the humiliation of having to defend some pretty poor performance at the Local Strategic Partnership executive group on the basis of some very recent information,” he said.
“In terms of local area agreement targets for 2007 to 2010, the areas which are highlighted as red across the city for the four LSP theme groups are all health related.”
Mr Richards leads the healthy theme group, but responsibility for achieving the targets falls with a range of agencies. The other theme groups are classed as wealthy, safe and wise.
He continued: “Having said that we can access that reward grant money, it will quite rightly be seen by communities and partners across the city as money we've lost.
“They are three-year targets but people maybe failed to realise that failure to hit mile-stone targets each year may result in loss of the reward grant.”
He said there appears to be a mindset that “it's a good idea to put ourselves forward for these targets”, but the fact they have to be delivered can be overlooked.
“It's a bit like saying we thought we set a target to climb a hill but found the target was actually Mount Everest,” he added.
“But people do climb Mount Everest so what we are looking into at the moment is whether there is a different way of achieving it.”
Mr Richards continued to say he wants to “up the ante” on collective performance with partner agencies across the city responsible for delivering the targets, including the council, schools, voluntary agencies and more.
He said he will be calling for urgent recovery plans to be put together on all of these targets – within PCT bodies and partnership agencies across the city – and will report back to the board at next month's meeting.
Mr Richards added: “Twenty-nine targets were set in 2006 and the partnership is making good progress on achieving most of them. However, there are some targets that we are not currently meeting and urgent action is needed.
“These targets have not been treated with the highest priority but I promise they will be.
“Each and every target is being reviewed to ensure that our effort is as effective as possible.
“With support from across the city I will personally ensure that we will explore each and everyone of them to ensure they receive the right priority.”
Barry Keel, chief executive of Plymouth City Council and chair of the LSP's executive officer group, told The Herald: “Trying to encourage people to improve their health and wellbeing is not a quick fix that health organisations can tackle alone and the council and all of the partners in the LSP are committed to tackling these big issues together.”
He added many of the initial results are encouraging and only show the position after the first year on three-year targets.
The PCT board was also presented with an in-depth report on which highlighted similar issues raised by Mr Richards.
Drawing data from a range of sources, it was prepared by advisory service Grant Thornton as part of the PCT's 2007/8 audit.
The report identified high smoking rates, especially among pregnant women, rising obesity rates and low physical activity rates as particular areas of concern.
It praised the trust's strategy for tackling health inequalities, with initiatives to fight individual issues such as obesity, but also made a number of recommendations.
Mr Richards said: “I absolutely welcome the challenge that this paper has brought. It chimes quite well with the discussion about LAA targets.
“We are well positioned to drive these public health targets a lot harder than has happened in the past.”
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CONCERNS: The chief executive of Plymouth Primary Care Trust John Richards
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