BCP Council proposes terminating public health service agreement with Dorset County Council

Plans by BCP Council to terminate a joint public health service agreement with Dorset County Council has prompted a mixed reaction from Cabinet members.

Officers have recommended pulling out of Public Health Dorset – which the county council leads on – and installing its own service director.

The move follows the adoption of BCP Council’s corporate strategy in January, which puts more emphasis on the “principles of developing healthy communities and putting public health more strongly at the heart of the council’s aspirations”.

David Brown, Lib Dem cabinet member for health and wellbeing, said the solo approach would create a more “preventative service” that addresses health inequalities affecting residents and reduces the pressure on NHS services.

But councillors criticised a lack of detail in the report.

Labour’s Cllr Sharon Carr-Brown said: “Where are the examples of what could be done better? What are the visions for the new structure? And what are the financials around it?

“The level of importance of public health has already been stated; it’s something that I take extremely seriously. This is frontline council work and we need to do it well and embed public health in everything we do.

“But I want to see the evidence around this proposal.”

Cllr Patrick Canavan said the report “sets off a million questions in your head”, adding it had not been made clear what needs to be done differently.

“I’ve worked in and around the health service, and you cannot do much without that joint working,” he told the meeting. “This will cost money, so what additional value are you going to get?”

Concerns over duplications across the authorities were raised by Cllr Andy Hadley, who told the meeting: “Some of it may be overlapping just for the sake of running our own show; I would find it unfortunate if we didn’t recognise some of this potential.”

But Cllr Brown said pulling out of the agreement would not spell the end of joint working with the county council.

He continued: “If we can get this right, we can really deliver on our preventative agenda across social care, children’s services, leisure services – it gives us a much stronger internal focus.”

Council leader Vikki Slade said many other authorities “half the size” of BCP Council had directors of public health, yet were still “part of the wider health network”.

“My personal experience over the last nine months of being back in this role is that we need to have an embedded public health service.

“We are not seeing the directors of public health attend all the meetings we would expect them to. Last week we had a really important meeting of the children’s services improvement board, with a paper from public health – but nobody from public health actually attended the meeting, even online.

“That, to me, is not acceptable, and it would not happen if those teams were integrated completely within this organisation.”

Cllr Slade said the needs of residents in rural parts of Dorset were very different from those in the BCP region, and argued she could not see any clear benefits in staying locked into the current agreement.

“We’ve yet to explore the costs of having our own service,” she continued. “But it shouldn’t always be about the cheapest service – it should be about the right service.”

Councillors voted unanimously to give “intention to terminate the agreement”, and agreed for the council’s overview and scrutiny panel to now examine the report.

The report will now go to full council.