What we do

We work with a wide range of partners to plan and buy or ‘commission’ services. Our aim is to improve the health and healthcare of everyone living in Southport and Formby, spending money wisely and supporting doctors, nurses and other clinicians to do the best job they can.

So we can commission the most appropriate services for our residents, we firstly need to understand all the information and medical evidence about current health and healthcare in Southport and Formby. This informs what more we need to do, so we can plan for health services that continue to meet the needs of local people in the future.

The views of patients, carers and the public are also central to understanding how we can improve health and health services, and we involve local people in this process too.

• Our plans also have to meet a number of nationally set standards and requirements like the NHS Outcomes Framework, the Five Year Forward View and the NHS Constitution, which set out what everyone can expect from their national health service and what is expected from them in return
• We publish all our plans – including our 5 Year Strategy for improving health and care and our Blueprint for Transforming Services – so people can see what we are working on and those areas of health that we are particularly concentrating on
• Because the work of our partners also impacts on the health of local people, we are working closely together to ensure all our plans are aligned. An example of this is our Sefton wide Health and Wellbeing Strategy that we produce with Sefton Council and other partners. This means that collectively, we have the opportunity to achieve more by sharing resources, reducing duplication and strengthening our combined efforts whenever we can