Lead person for health and care appointed in Wigan Borough

Lead person for health and care appointed in Wigan Borough

A new lead person responsible for the integration of health and care in Wigan Borough has been appointed.

Known as a ‘place lead’, Alison Mckenzie-Folan will head up a newly formed Integrated Care Partnership in the borough as part of national changes to the way organisations support people’s health and care needs.

Alison, who is Chief Executive of Wigan Council, is one of 10 place leads in Greater Manchester as the city region becomes a fully integrated system from Friday July 1.

As part of the Health and Care Act 2022, a new statutory NHS organisation will be formed – NHS Greater Manchester Integrated Care – and it will be part of a wider Greater Manchester Integrated Care Partnership involving all the different organisations that support the health and care of residents across the region. 

Complementary to the Greater Manchester partnership will be Integrated Care Partnerships in each of the 10 boroughs, also made up of NHS organisations, the council, Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) colleagues and other key partners.

Each partnership will work with the public in their local area, and with the wider system across Greater Manchester, to keep everyone healthier; plan and deliver health services more effectively; make sure everyone is treated equally and fairly; help the NHS become as efficient as possible, and also help it contribute to the wider economy.

In Wigan Borough, its Integrated Care Partnership, Healthier Wigan, will continue the work it has been progressing since 2017.

Alison said: “I am honoured and delighted to be taking on the place lead role for Wigan Borough alongside my chief executive role for the council.

“Wigan is a place with an excellent track record of delivering improvements through innovation and collaboration in health and care with exceptional leadership.

“I am very much looking forward to building on these strong foundations as our Healthier Wigan partnership takes health and social care integration into a new and exciting era.

“We will be working closely with all our wonderful partners in the borough, including our voluntary, community faith and social enterprise sector and, of course, our citizens to deliver the best possible joined up health and care services and together tackle inequalities in our borough.”

Councillor Keith Cunliffe, Wigan Council’s Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care & Health, said: “As a partnership we are determined to realise the potential of the new integrated organisation by putting people at the heart of all our work so that we improve wider health as well as deliver high quality services.

“Having Alison as a place lead will maintain the excellent culture of collaborative working we have as a partnership and help us utilise all the opportunities available to tackle the root causes of health inequalities in our borough.”

Dr Tim Dalton said: “This new phase for health and care commissioning will build on the great work delivered by my colleagues in NHS Wigan Borough CCG and our partners over the last decade.  The new organisation and partnership offer us important new opportunities to deliver better, more integrated care for local people.  We are fortunate in the Borough to have the foundations of partnership working through Healthier Wigan and I look forward to working with Alison to take this forward.”

The NHS Greater Manchester Integrated Care organisation brings together staff from all 10 Greater Manchester clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) – including Wigan Borough CCG as well as Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership and Greater Manchester Shared Services, which will all disband on July 1.

Mark Fisher, Chief Executive designate of NHS Greater Manchester Integrated Care, who takes up his role officially on July 1, said: “This is an exciting new era for Greater Manchester and I’m proud to be a part of it. I’d like to welcome the new place-based leads and am looking forward to working with them as they come into post.

“We are all building on a strong history of partnership working, most notably after the devolution of health and social care in 2015, and our priorities to tackle health inequalities and deliver high quality NHS and care services will remain and be amplified. Our partnerships at a local level will help to bring us into closer collaboration than ever before and this in turn will allow us to step up our efforts to improve the health and wellbeing for all.”

Place-based leads in each locality will receive devolved responsibility and resources from NHS Greater Manchester Integrated Care.

The majority of place leads in Greater Manchester are serving council chief executives. 

Local integrated care partnerships will be overseen by a local Board, which includes people from the local authority, NHS, voluntary sector and wider partners reflective of each place.