CONTROVERSIAL plans to reshape NHS services are set to come under the microscope next week.

Members of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council's Health and Wellbeing Board will be inspecting the draft Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP) put forward by NHS chiefs.

The NHS in Durham, Darlington, Tees, Hambleton, Richmondshire and Whitby draft report sets out its vision for 2016-21.

The aim is to tackle a potential £281m health and social care deficit in the region by 2021 with the contentious change programme envisaging a shift from hospital-based treatment to increasing NHS services in local communities.

The meeting takes place at the Redcar Community Heart where Amanda Hume of South Tees Clinical Commissioning Group, is expected to present the draft report.

Ahead of the meeting, Alan Foster STP lead for the NHS wrote: "We are building on a long history of working in partnership to drive improvements in the health and wellbeing of our local population. Where we have collaborated with others either outside of our boundaries or within our footprint, the results have been positive and far greater than any individual organisation could have achieved alone.

"This is most evident with the Better Health Programme and also Fit for the Future which are providing a strong platform for delivering system wide change. Transformation across the STP footprint will deliver a shift towards improving ‘population health’ - moving from fragmentation to integration in care delivery, but also tackling the wider determinants of the health and wellbeing of our population. Working together as a Health and Care system enables us to focus on early intervention and prevention, integration, reconfiguration of hospital based services, and technology."

Last month, campaigner Jo Land, one of the key organisers of the Footprints March for the NHS and a founder member of national campaign group 999 Call for the NHS, made an impassioned plea to Darlington Borough Council members calling for them to carefully scrutinise the plans.

Sue Jacques, chief executive of the Durham and Darlington Trust, is one of seven people on the STP executive tasked with drawing up the plan for Darlington, Durham, Teesside, Hambleton, Richmondshire and Whitby, which is being submitted to NHS England.

For further information about proposals visit www.southteesccg.nhs.uk/