The public is being invited to help shape the future of local health and social care services by playing its part in a 'big conversation'.
The opportunity has been created by Caring Together - an alliance of all of the area's health and social care providers – which is working to create a joined-up service across the whole of Eastern Cheshire.
Before any changes are proposed or made, people's views and aspirations for health and social care are being sought.
This week a short document has been published seeking people's views and Caring Together wants to hear from as many people as possible by 30th April 2014.
The feedback and insights gleaned will then be fed into options for the way ahead, which will be the subject of a more formal public consultation exercise expected later in the year.
GP Dr Paul Bowen, Chair of NHS Eastern Cheshire Clinical Commissioning Group, said "The best way of improving care is to listen to those who use it, may need it, or work delivering it. As a GP, and local resident, I would like services that are of the highest quality and that are delivered as locally as possible. People now have an opportunity to help us design care services that are fit and sustainable for our future.
"To make that happen, we need to understand the national standards we must aspire to, the experiences of those receiving and delivering care, and the financial challenge and risks involved in doing nothing.
"We're living longer, and many people can now be treated in their own homes. Medical advances and the need to treat patients safely also mean that the way hospital services are provided is evolving. GPs, social, community and specialist staff could work so much more jointly to improve care.
"We believe that patients should sit at the heart of a everything we do and that local people should also be supported to take responsibility for their own health as much as possible.
"Seizing the opportunity for better care is our way of asking the public what it wants, needs and expects from health and care services in the future, given the challenges and opportunities we face."
Jerry Hawker, Chief Officer of the NHS Eastern Cheshire CCG, added: "There is much to be proud of our health and social care services in Eastern Cheshire. Staff work hard to provide good care, local people are relatively fit and healthy compared to other parts of the country, and local organisations work well together.
"But we believe services need to evolve if they are to meet the changing needs of local people. Caring Together aims to increase the number of people having a positive experience of care in part by pooling our resources and making more of what we have.
"If we stay as we are, we will not be adapting to the changing needs of local people. That is why it is so important that the public tells us what they feel about the services they currently use and what their hopes are for the future."
Lorraine Butcher, Executive Director of Strategic Commissioning, Cheshire East Council, said: "I am delighted that we, as a local authority, are committing to working even more closely with our partners in the health service. Our focus is on providing community-based care services working in teams across neighbourhoods in East Cheshire. So our close contact with the public is going to be a tremendous asset in seeking out people's views on how we work in future.
"The financial pressures on local government are very real, increasing our need to work collaboratively with other organisations as a single team. We will be particularly interested in people's ideas for how we can work more effectively in partnership to deliver better services and better value."
Dr Robert Stead, Medical Director of East Cheshire NHS Trust, added: "Clinical input into how we design our services in future, working with others, is absolutely key – and we want to supplement that with the views of the people who use our services.
"Caring Together is an enormous opportunity to make our services safer and better for the public at large, while responding to the significant financial challenge that we face as an organisation, which is just one of the factor driving the need to change the way we work for the public."
Click here to view the document - Seizing the opportunity for better care.
