West Lothian - Health & Wellbeing

West Lothian is fortunate in that the boundary of the Health & Care Partnership matches the local authority boundary. This, (and the fact that much more detailed health information is now available at small area level via the Scottish Government), will simplify the task of understanding & communicating information about health in West Lothian. Working with partners in health the aim is to select indicators which highlight issues for intervention & enable us to identify whether our work has been effective.

Public Health Scotland published Health Profiles for each Authority in 2004, and these were updated by the Scottish Public Health Observatory in 2008. The revised profile of Health in West Lothian, is available here (see reports & interactive maps on the right menu). Data is also available for intermediate zones but not for data zones. CAUTION some of the definitions used are different from the standard used in health e.g. for the HEAT targets.

The right menu now also contains links to the Lothian Public Health Reports which also contain statistics. Note: The interactive mapping in the older reports requires a special add-on to your browser and may not work.

In June 2008, the Scottish Government released the report "Equally Well". The report (which is supported by a number of papers on related issues), states that whilst Scotland's health is improving rapidly, ...it is not improving fast enough for the poorest sections of our society. Health inequalities ... remain (the) major challenge. The report therefore outlines measures to address health inequalities in Scotland.

First Minister Alex Salmond said:

"Tackling health inequalities is a matter of social justice. It's unacceptable in 21st century Scotland that some people can expect to die earlier than others, simply due to an accident of birth or circumstances. ... Reducing health inequalities is vital to achieving the Scottish Government's overall purpose: sustainable economic growth. If Scotland is to live up to its potential in terms of economic success, healthy life expectancy must increase - particularly among those whose lives are currently cut short due to deprivation or other inequalities."

One of the supporting papers from COSLA (the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities), outlines the role for local government, stating that:

"To tackle health inequalities effectively, Community Planning Partnerships and Community Health Partnerships will need to be signed up to delivering on the health inequalities agenda. Councils will therefore need to work even more closely with partners to provide disadvantaged groups with faster access to better and more joined-up services."

It is suggested that knowledge sharing networks should be established to ensure that practitioners have the tools, skills and resources to make an impact on health inequalities. We need to develop an evidence based approach by creating networks that help us to understand what works in tackling health inequalities. Clearly, we will need to draw upon existing structures and processes. Yet, that is not to say we cannot add value to current arrangements. Indeed, we would hope to work with the Scottish Government and other key partners to ensure that a physical resource - in the form of a team of officers - is made available to support this process. Ultimately, we want to develop a process that provides community planning partnerships with the knowledge, skills and capacities to tackle health inequalities.

The report goes on to state that:

The primary vehicle for delivering change at the strategic level is now the Single Outcome Agreements (SOAs). It is the longer term intention of the new outcomes framework that the whole public sector is held to account by a common set of objectives.
One of the benefits of addressing health inequalities in this manner is that we can also simultaneously address other challenges: if we manage to achieve measurable outcomes in reducing health inequalities, we will probably also have improved outcomes on educational attainment, poverty reduction, community safety and so on. SOAs will ultimately create an environment for more effective strategic decision making at the community planning partnership level. There will be a need for the community planning partners to develop more integrated corporate plans, thereby cementing agreed priorities. This should also allow resources to be channelled to these strategic priorities.
Within SOAs, there are currently a range of indicators and outcomes that in some way relate to the health inequalities agenda. What we need to consider going forward is whether the current framework could be fine-tuned to allow for a more considered approach to tackling health inequalities. This is not a short-term consideration; this will need to be assessed after SOAs bed-in. Neither will it just be for councils to reflect on this: the Scottish Government must also consider the profile it wants to attach to health inequalities.

Key Statistics on Health Inequalities:Background Stats Paper (see web links on the right as well).

There are therefore many indicators of poor health & health inequalities & this site will be expanded to include more. At present, we have focussed on those identified by the Health Improvement Team for use in locality planning (for full list see the Health Improvement page).

The longer term objective is to agree and extend the range of indicators reported & monitored here to address all of the indicators which will be built into the new Outcome Agreement with the Scottish Executive. These are likely to include indicators such as the various causes of mortality.

The Scottish Schools Adolescent Lifestyle & Substance Misuse Survey 2006 (SALSUS)

West Lothian - Health & Wellbeing

Data

Mapping

Lothian Public Health - Annual Reports

External Health Links