A PANEL of experts has been appointed to tackle health inequalities in the North-East.

The five national figures form the Commission for Health and Social Care in the North East, set up by the NHS and the North East Combined Authority (Neca) as part of the Government’s North-East devolution deal.

Its aim is to identify how different bodies can better work together to improve the region’s health and wellbeing.

The Commission, which met for the first time last week, is chaired by Duncan Selbie, chief executive of Public Health England.

The other members are: Tom Wright, chief executive of Age UK; Professor Dame Carol Black, an advisor to Public Health England and NHS England; Rob Whitemen, chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy; and Dr Amit Bhargava, clinical chief officer for the NHS Crawley Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and executive board member of the NHS Alliance.

Councillor Mick Henry, Neca’s health and social care lead, said: “We want to improve the economic fortunes of the North-East, with more and better jobs and greater opportunities for business to develop and thrive.

By tackling health inequalities, we can ensure that residents across the region are able to share in the benefits that this can bring.”

The Commission will soon begin to gather evidence from people and groups across its area. It will then meet to discuss its findings in the early summer.