Ruth Cooke will be a commissioner looking at te future of the National Health Service, accoridng to Inside Housing today
Ruth Cooke, chief executive of 33,000-home landlord Midland Heart, will act as a commissioner on a project launched today by thinktank New Local Government Network and community interest company Collaborate.
The commission will look at what new local collaborative models of health, care and support could look like.
It will begin by examining three key questions:
- As resources remain limited and budgets constrained, how do you improve health outcomes for citizens without spending more?
- Structural change to move from a focus on acute care to more prevention and early intervention is vital. But will it ever be political acceptable to close hospitals?
- How do you localise a cross-sector service with a partner as centralised as the NHS without losing quality and consistency?
Last December housing and health bodies signed an agreement to work more closely together.The document, signed by various bodies including NHS trusts, the Chartered Institute of Housing and the National Housing Federation, set out a ‘shared commitment to joint action across government, health, social care and housing.’