Councillors to discuss setting up new company under ip&e to help improve people’s health

Councillors are to discuss a proposal to bring together initiatives that support people to live long and healthy lives into one company, as part of the Shropshire-Council owned organisation ip&e.

Shropshire Council’s Cabinet will look at initial plans to form the new enterprise, with the working title of ‘Help2Change’, which would aim to prevent or delay long-term health conditions, improve quality of life, narrow inequalities in health, and reduce health and social care costs.

A range of programmes to prevent ill health are currently commissioned by Shropshire Council and delivered by organisations including the Community Trust, ShropDoc, Health Check and alcohol prevention groups. These include NHS Health Checks, Help2Quit, and Help2Slim.

It is proposed that Help2Change would join up these services that provide opportunities to improve people’s health by transferring them to one place under ip&e (inspiring partnerships and enterprise). Help2Change would work closely with local GPs and other providers of health services to promote the health and well-being of people in the area.

Ip&e provides public services on the council’s behalf and enables the council to reinvest any profit back into services. The proposals are for Help2Change to be structured as a non-profit distributing subsidiary of ip&e Limited, which means that any profit made is reinvested directly into public health and, in turn, helping people lead healthier lives.

If councillors approve the principle of establishing Help2Change when they meet on Wednesday 9 April 2014, a detailed business case would then be developed, before a final decision was taken.

Karen Calder, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member for health, said:

“The setting up of Help2Change has been proposed to unlock new opportunities to improve people’s health.

“It is planned to bring together existing services under ip&e, to not only continue to offer Shropshire residents the support they need to live healthy lives, but increase what is available.

“This is because Help2Change would have more freedom to work in ways that bring in more funds for the people of Shropshire.

“If approved, there is still a lot of work to do to ensure that these initial plans are supported by a robust business case.

“However, by having ip&e in place it means we can explore and develop these options which have the potential to make us much more innovative, and look for new ways to benefit the county.”

Further information

Shropshire Council has been responsible for commissioning preventative health services since April 2013 as part of the wider transfer of public health work previously undertaken by Shropshire County Primary Care Trust (PCT) and other NHS trusts.

For more information on public health initiatives go to www.healthyshropshire.co.uk

To read the Cabinet report click here.