Vision for Health and Care in Powys to 2027 and beyond

Powys teaching Health Board are delighted to publish the integrated Health and Care Strategy for Powys, following approval by Powys County Council Cabinet and Powys Teaching Health Board earlier this month.

It builds on thousands of conversations between the people of Powys, Powys Teaching Health Board, Powys County Council and key partners over the last year.

These are challenging times, particularly with the prolonged period of austerity and the changing needs of the people of Powys. We know that people in Powys live longer and healthier lives than elsewhere in Wales. We also know that Powys is a place where we aspire to help improve the wellbeing of all people. This is why this strategy seeks to enable children and young people to ‘Start Well’, for people to ‘Live Well’ and older people to ‘Age Well’.

Whilst it doesn’t describe the detail of the developments at this stage—which will follow during 2017/18—it does outline the direction we feel is important to take. Promoting wellbeing; offering early help and support to people; tackling the big four diseases that limit life (cancer, circulatory diseases, mental health, respiratory diseases); and providing joined up care are the key areas that we suggest become priorities for action. This means that we will spend more time and effort helping people to stay well, to help them act early to prevent ill health and get support, and where care and treatment is required that we work with people to ensure care is joined up and based on what matters most to the individual.

We also want to provide as much health and care as possible in Powys. There has been real success over the last few years with the introduction of new services, and we feel that—with the development of new technology, for example—we could do more in Powys. We know that some people will continue to need to travel for services out of county, but we will focus on improving access wherever possible.

We would like to thank everyone who has helped to shape this strategy so far. Our priority over the next few weeks is to develop the programme for 2017/18 for working with communities and partners to begin to translate this strategy into local delivery. We look forward to sharing more details during June, and working with you during 2017/18 to put this into practice in towns and communities across the county.

Health and Care Strategy Programme Team, c/o Powys Teaching Health Board.

http://www.powysthb.wales.nhs.uk/health-and-care-strategy