Walsall’s Health and Wellbeing Board met this week in a conference room at Walsall’s Council House.

The Board is made up of Partners across Walsall including a cross-party representation of Councillors along with Senior Council Officers drawn from Adult Social Care, Children’s Services and Public Health. Five representatives from Walsall Clinical Commissioning Group, NHS England, Walsall Voluntary Action, West Midlands Police, Healthwatch Walsall and the West Midlands Fire Service.

The Board provides a key form of public accountability for the NHS, Public Health, Social Care for adults and children along with other services which impact on citizens health and their wellbeing. it has set a number of strategies which are aimed at improving the medium to long term health and wellbeing of the people of Walsall through collaboration and partnership.

This week the Board were looking at the actions its member organisations were taking in order to address the health inequalities which have divided the borough east to west with life expectancy being anything from 8 to 12 years shorter to the west of the borough compared with the more affluent areas over on the east.

Starting with the good news. On measures being taken across the partnership on improvements in the management of diabetes Walsall is in the top quartile. Work is still going on to maintain and improve further this performance and the Board will continue monitoring progress. NHS England has secured some funding to enable the second wave of a National Diabetes Prevention Programme to be rolled out.

On Mortality Rates for Respiratory Disease in the over 75s, Walsall is in the second quartile and the performance has slipped back in recent times. The Clinical Commissioning Group is leading on this issue and is reviewing the actions taken. Cllr Ian Shires raised the point that that was all well and good but their are other factors which could very well be influencing the decline in performance linked to the effects of years working in the traditional heavy industries which proliferated in parts of the borough. In more recent times the amount of traffic using the M6 corridor which runs through the west of the borough will also have had some effects. “Walsall Council has a report on air quality coming to its next Cabinet meeting” said Ian. “We need to ensure that this issue gets crossed referenced so that we can use both to influence future plans in a way which will help improve things.”

With respiratory disease other issues such as the quality of housing can also be an important determining factor. There is some evidence that the quality of some of the private rented sector in the borough leaves a lot to be desired. Poverty also plays its part.

Peoples life styles and choices also have their negative effects, so it’s important that each of the Board’s members ensures that there are strategies in place to enable collaborative working to take place to ensure that every penny counts in these times when money is tight due to the continuing austerity measures coming from the Tories in Government.