This is the third of a short series of posts summarising how the council believes it’s doing in meeting its main priorities.  It’s a summarised version of a public report, which itself is a summary of hundreds of pages of reports, backed up by data, looking at every aspect of the 600+ services we deliver.

This summary – and so any errors or omissions contained – is my own.  It comes from the 4th Quarter 2010/11 Corporate Performance Report which comes to the Council’s Executive Committee on Wednesday.  The report itself is publicly available – you can read it from page 256 of the Executive agenda here.

A healthy Stockport

• More children do at least two hours of P.E. a week (86% in 2009/10, up from 79% the year before).  A range of initiatives encourage more children to walk or cycle to school (which is working well at Gatley Primary, where the new bike racks are full most days – often with a couple of unicycles as well as the bikes and scooters).
• Obesity among children is increasing, but is a good deal lower than the national average.  (Reception year obesity up from 6.1% to 7.9%, year 6 obesity up from 16.1% to 16.5%).  A range of local, Greater Manchester and national initiatives such as our Healthy Weight Strategy, the Child Healthy Weight Care Pathway and Change4Life seek to get our kids healthier.
• Some really good work is being done to give adults with care needs more control over their lives.  This is being done by giving people who want it a personal budget to choose their own services and this is going well.
• A new prescription service allows people to access equipment to support their daily living far more easily.
• Stockport Council are trailblazing ‘Right to Control’ – a new project allowing disabled people to shape the support they receive and create a more personalized service.
• The breastfeeding rate across Stockport has dropped slightly to 47%.  Worrying is the massive gap between breastfeeding levels in our wealthier and poorer neighbourhoods.  Over 80% of new mothers breastfeed in Marple, but in Brinnington it’s just 9.1%.  Work is being done to increase the number of breastfeeding helpers.
• Alcohol-related admissions to hospital have increased, both in our poorer areas and right across the Borough.  A range of work is in place to improve this, including prevention and early intervention for under-16s.
• Plans are in place to improve the bus links from Cheadle, Bramhall, Offerton Green and Marple to Stepping Hill Hospital.

Health is one the toughest area for local authorities to influence outcomes: to some extent our health is (and should be) up to us: if adults choose to live unhealthy lives, we might want to inform and encourage them to get healthy, but it’s their choice.  At the moment the NHS Trust, Primary Care Trust and a range of other bodies work with the Local Authority to help people.

Where the Council has the most influence – such as the excellent work in empowering people to take control of their own care through personal budgets – the results are good.  But issues like breastfeeding rates in our more deprived areas, alcohol-related admissions to hospital and obesity levels have the same challenges in Stockport as elsewhere in the country and could certainly be a great deal better.

   Leave a comment