Mayor announces new place-based, preventative role for the NHS

• New place-based locality teams in Greater Manchester will put the focus on people and place, with prevention at its heart
• Greater Manchester reforms ‘equally as bold as the creation of the NHS’
• Nursing students in Greater Manchester to be guaranteed jobs after graduating
• Greater Manchester will be the first place in the country to publish waiting times data for children and young people’s mental health services
• New mental health service for university students in Greater Manchester, including GP passport - allowing students to keep the same Greater Manchester GP throughout their student career

Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham will today, for the first time, set out Greater Manchester’s vision of a 21st century NHS as part of a new model of public service within the city-region.

Mr Burnham will describe the “Greater Manchester model” and outline 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 will draw an important distinction between his former role as Health Secretary and his current role.  He will say: ‘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 will say that the speech presents 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 is expected to say 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 will argue 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 will make 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 is expected to say that “the scrapping of the Nurse Bursary has created a risk that we won’t attract people into training in the same numbers”. He will announce 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 underinvestment in mental health services, Mr Burnham is expected to call mental health “the poor relation of the NHS and children’s mental health the poor relation of the poor relation”. He will recognise the positive changes taking place in Greater Manchester including improvements to eating disorder services and crisis care.

He will speak 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 will state 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 is expected to announce 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 will 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 set to be announced today is 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.

Your can read the Mayor's full speech here.