Lincolnshire County Council will work closer with NHS partners providing health services after the creation of a new board.
The new group, which will be called the Integrated Care System (ICS) Partnership Board, was approved during Lincolnshire County Council’s full council meeting on Friday. It will aim to foster closer working between council and NHS services.
It will include eight county councillors, three county council directors, nine health chiefs, a district council representative, the Police and Crime Commissioner for Lincolnshire and a member of Healthwatch.
Campaigners argued the move, which expands the current Health and Wellbeing Board to include a wider array of members, means the council now supports proposals from the health service that they rejected in 2016 — but the council denies this is the case.
Cllr Martin Hill, leader of Lincolnshire County Council. | Photo: Daniel Jaines
Following Friday’s meeting, Councillor Martin Hill said: “The [ICS] is actually a very good idea and we have done that already in March.
“It is basically health and social care working together more seamlessly to actually do what really matters, the well being support we give to patients and the public.
“I think everybody would agree that health and social care need to work closely together for the benefit of patients.”
According to the government, its ICS plan will build on the former NHS Long Term Plans by removing barriers and red tape over integration and decision making and ensuring the system is more accountable.
Campaigners have concerns that the move covers the same plans as before under a different name and that there will not be accountability or transparency.
Fighting 4 Lincolnshire Life NHS Campaigner Melissa Darcey (right) with SKDC councillor and fellow campaigner Charmaine Morgan.
Councillor Hill, however, said: “Just because we’ve agreed to have this board where we will work together, which I think everybody would say is a good idea, doesn’t necessarily mean that we are then signing up to what proposals have been suggested in the past by the local NHS.”
He promised the council would continue to scrutinise proposals through its entirely separate health scrutiny committee.
Government and health bosses say that many of the initial controversial proposals have been dropped and have denied that the ICS developments could open the door to privatisation. Two judicial reviews against NHS England were dismissed.
The Lincolnite welcomes your views. All comments are reactively-moderated and must obey the house rules. Please stay on topic and be respectful of other readers.
Schools and universities in Lincolnshire recognise the potential benefits, but also the concerns, over the use of artificial intelligence.
The results of the government’s first ever Call for Evidence on Artificial Intelligence in Education’ report were published on Tuesday, November 28. It was open for 10 weeks and closed on August 23 this year, with 567 responses received during that time. Most respondents were “broadly optimistic” about the use of GenAI in education.
Almost two months on from Network Rail stating it had implemented “new cleaning regimes” for its railway bridge on Brayford Wharf East, the same concerns of graffiti, dirt and moss growth are continuing — and we are no clearer on how regularly the bridge is cleaned.
The bridge, which opened in 2019 in a bid to improve public safety on the railway crossing, is regularly used by many commuters and residents in Lincoln, but it has been the topic of a cleanliness discussion for many months now.