A public health partnership between Hampshire and the Isle of Wight has been given the go-ahead to continue for another 2 years.
The 2 councils have been sharing resources, expertise and a director since the partnership started in 2019.
Before that, inspectors said the Isle of Wight Council’s public health team was ‘not fulling’ its duties. Now, following a peer review by the Local Government Association in September last year, there is ‘clear evidence of significant progress’ in providing ‘safe, high-quality’ services to the Island through the partnership.
There is development potential moving forward, the review found, although some health outcomes still require improvement, including male life expectancy, smoking-related deaths and low childhood immunisation rates.
The Isle of Wight Council’s cabinet agreed the extension of the partnership last Thursday (9th March) and will now come to an end in 2025 when another agreement could be made.
Speaking at the cabinet meeting, Simon Bryant, said he was delighted to be the Island’s public health director and help improve the population’s health. He also said the peer review really showed the benefit of the partnership.
The public health partnership on the Island provides services for: sexual health; substance misuse; mental health; domestic abuse; and healthy child provisions.
I am sure I will be corrected if wrong but what part of sharing is helping the Island, we have given QA Portsmouth a vast amount of cash then informed there are no beds for Islanders. This article is a farce.
Well I for one am grateful to QA Portsmouth. When I was diagnosed with kidney cancer they operated within weeks at QA to remove one of them. Wouldn’t have been done over here. Probably saved my life.
Very true.
St Mary’s would be clueless to such an Health issue.
Where would the Island be without the brains of the Hospitals in
Portsmouth and Southampton.