Role of the Board
Health and Wellbeing Together is the forum where key leaders from the health, care and wider system come together to work collectively to reduce health inequalities, support the development of improved and joined up health and social care services and set the strategic direction to improve the health and wellbeing of the local population. It is the name given to the City of Wolverhampton Health and Wellbeing Board, a statutory board established under the Health & Social Care Act 2012. Here you can find a list of the partner organisations that sit on the Board.
Health and Wellbeing Together has a responsibility to assess the needs of the local population by developing and overseeing the implementation of the City of Wolverhampton’s Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA). The JSNA, alongside the views of local people, other community feedback and local data is then used to inform the Board’s Joint Local Health and Wellbeing strategy.
The strategy outlines the board’s role in coordinating and maintaining strategic oversight of activity to improve quality and access of care and promote mental health and wellbeing, alongside a collective commitment to address health inequalities. It also details how the board will progress its three key priority areas: starting and growing well, reducing addiction harm and getting Wolverhampton moving. Our Physical Activity Strategy accompanies this and provides further detail about how we are working together to drive forward this board priority area.
Our working principles:
Health and Wellbeing Together is committed promoting and strengthening system leadership by:
- Providing strong local leadership based on evidence, focusing on those areas where the Board can make the biggest difference to health and well-being.
- Encouraging integrated working, promoting an ethos of integration and partnership in the planning, commissioning, and delivery of services.
- Demonstrating transparent decision making so that local people can understand the decisions being taken and the rationale behind them.
- Involving local people in decision making by enabling residents to have their say through community engagement and co-production opportunities.
- Working in partnership to identify shared priorities and appropriately coordinate activity, informed by a commitment to a place-based approach to health.
- Taking action to tackle health inequalities using a consistent approach across partners with a firm view that health inequalities are not inevitable.
- Acting with courage and conviction seizing the opportunities presented by being part of the Black Country Integrated Care System to work in new and innovative ways in the long-term interests of the whole population of Wolverhampton.
This approach is underpinned by the Board's Terms of Reference and Joint Working Protocol.
Health and Wellbeing Together Agenda Setting
Health and social care partner organisations who sit on Health and Wellbeing Together can submit items for future meetings of the Board by downloading and completing the Agenda Item Request Template.
Completed forms should be returned to Shelley Humphries, Democratic Services officer by email: shelley.humphries@wolverhampton.gov.uk or by post to Democratic Services, City of Wolverhampton Council, Civic Centre, St Peter's Square, Wolverhampton, WV1 1RG .
Health and Wellbeing Together recognises the importance of providing patients, carers and service users with the opportunity to contribute to shaping health and social care priorities. Members of the public are therefore able to attend and ask questions at Board meetings in accordance with this guidance.