AN ambitious new plan to tackle health inequalities, boost public health and improve the quality of life for residents has been given the green light.

Warrington’s health and wellbeing board – which oversees the delivery of key services in the town – has approved a the five-year health plan.

The blueprint aims to shape health and social care up until 2024.

Under the new strategic vision, council and NHS services will collaborate closer than ever to deliver a more sustainable and trusted health and social care system for residents, aiming to create a ‘more caring, healthier and safer’ town.

Council chief executive Steven Broomhead, chair of the board, said: “Closer collaboration between all the agencies who have a role to play in health and social care is critical for the long-term health of our town.

“We understand the complex challenges Warrington is facing; a growing, changing and ageing population, more people with multiple chronic and long-term conditions and an ever more challenging budget environment within which we have to work.

“But we are stronger together as a whole than through the sum of our parts and it will take vision, hard work and a genuine commitment to integration if we are to provide the health and social care services our residents truly deserve.”

The council’s cabinet member for statutory health and adult social care Cllr Rebecca Knowles, who sits on the board, said the borough’s health services have ‘radically improved’ over the last few years and that the area is bucking some of the more negative national trends.

She added: “In recent years, we’ve placed greater emphasis on the community-led approach and because of this the pressures on our hospitals have been reduced.

“That’s testament not only to our strategy locally, but to the commitment to integration of our health and wellbeing providers and the highly skilled people on the frontline of our health and social care services.”