THE Durham Dales, Easington and Sedgefield (DDES) Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) – one of three CCGs in County Durham and Darlington working towards full authorisation to take over responsibility for commissioning health care from Primary Care Trusts – has unveiled its Clear and Credible plan. This sets out how the CCG will invest its £400m budget to realise its vision of working together for excellent health for the communities it serves.

The CCG will work together with its 41 GP practices and partners to focus on five key aims to improve health services for its population of 272,000.

To provide a flavour, the key aims are listed below, along with one example of how the CCG plans to deliver its vision.

Full details of all the CCG’s aims and how it plans to deliver them are available by accessing the full version of the Clear and Credible Plan on www.cdd.nhs.uk

Key aim 1: Improving the health of residents by expanding programmes and services such as weight management, smoking quitters and bowel cancer screening so that illnesses are identified before they become life threatening.

Key aim 2: Ensuring children and young people have a better start in life by working with schools and local authorities to educate children about making healthy choices and living a healthy lifestyle.

Key aim 3: Tackling the challenges of an ageing and growing population by developing community-focused services to help patients manage longterm conditions such as diabetes or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Key aim 4: Making services more accessible and responsive to local needs by bringing in more providers who can meet NHS quality standards so that patients can choose from a wider range of services closer to their homes.

Key aim 5: Managing resources effectively and responsibly by developing schemes to control the cost of prescribing medicines.

In setting out its priorities, the plan reflects the diverse health needs of the population in the Durham Dales, Easington and Sedgefield areas.

People living in these areas are more likely to have worse levels of obesity, hypertension, depression and coronary heart disease and are more likely to die sooner than if they were to live in other parts of the county, region and country overall.

Dr Stewart Findlay, pictured, interim chief officer with DDES CCG, said: “We have built up a picture of each locality by looking at local health needs and current health service provision, as well as what patients tell us about the services they receive and what we see as clinicians.

“From this we have identified focus areas for each of our localities. These address our clinical priorities and five key aims but ensure we deliver services to meet individual local needs.

“The publication of our Clear and Credible Plan marks the start of our fiveyear journey to improving health services.

“It is vital that local people play a key role in shaping how we deliver it.

“We will continue to develop our relationships with partners, providers and our communities as we deliver this plan, and will ensure that we have a range of ways in which we communicate and engage with our local populations.”