New place-based, preventative role for the NHS as part of the ‘Greater Manchester Model’

Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham has set out his vision of a 21st century NHS as part of a new model of public service within the city-region.

Mr Burnham described the “Greater Manchester model” and outlined the ‘unique opportunity’ the city-region has to integrate health with all public services, such as early years, education, community safety, housing and employment.

He drew an important distinction between his former role as Health Secretary and his current role.  He said: ‘As Secretary of State for Health, you can have a vision for health services.  As Mayor of Greater Manchester, you can have a vision for people’s health.’

The Mayor said that the speech presented the collective view of public services in Greater Manchester and “represents a level of consensus amongst its public service leaders that probably doesn’t exist anywhere else”.

Neighbourhood working

The Mayor also said that as “the only city-region with health devolution, it has become increasingly clear that the unique opportunity we have is to integrate health with everything - early years, education, community safety, housing and employment”. This means professionals from all public services working together, with a single budget, working in neighbourhood teams of 30-50k citizens.

Financial reform

To deliver this new way of working, the Mayor argued that financial reform of the NHS and social care is necessary, to make sure that we can and do support people with ongoing needs. Mr Burnham made it clear that “we require a longer-term settlement for social care” and “an end to the broken 15-minute visit culture in social care which severely undervalues the care-givers”.

Nursing guarantee

The Mayor said that “the scrapping of the Nurse Bursary has created a risk that we won’t attract people into training in the same numbers”. He announced that all of Greater Manchester’s NHS providers and universities have backed plans to introduce a guaranteed employment scheme for student nurses.

This guarantee will be offered to nurses who complete their studies at any of the four universities within Greater Manchester and will be in place for students who begin their course in early 2019.

The scheme is part of a wider programme of work led by the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership to improve the support in place for student and newly qualified nurses; setting out Greater Manchester’s commitment to being the place to study and build a career as a nurse.

Mental health

Recognising the chronic under spending in mental health services, Mr Burnham called mental health “the poor relation of the NHS and children’s mental health the poor relation of the poor relation”. He recognised the positive changes taking place in Greater Manchester including improvements to eating disorder services and crisis care.

He spoke about a schools pilot which has seen over 30 schools in Greater Manchester working with the voluntary sector to help children and young people look after their emotional health and wellbeing - and provide specialist support where needed.

The Mayor stated that there is still more to be done. Not least, in being open, about the variation that exists for children and young people to receive support and treatment.

Mr Burnham announced that by the end of the year, Greater Manchester will be the first place in the country to start collating and publishing waiting times data for children and young people’s mental health services. He set out that by publishing the data, “it will allow us to fully understand the baseline we are working from and how far we need to go to deliver on efficient and effective children and young people’s mental health services across Greater Manchester”.

Also announced was a commitment to a new mental health service for universities in Greater Manchester, making sure that it’s easier to get referred, regardless of where someone studies or lives and that young people are supported with the transition to university. Students will also be able to keep the same GP throughout their student career with the roll-out of a Greater Manchester university-student GP passport