In April 2013, Local Authorities took the lead from the NHS for improving the health of their local communities. As part of this process, public health budgets were protected until 2015/16 in order to drive local efforts to improve health and wellbeing by tackling the wider determinants of poor health.
As part of the transfer to the Council, the three contracts held with Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and Leeds and York Partnership Foundation NHS Trust were reviewed and were provided with new contracts based on Department of Health/Local Authority terms and conditions starting from 1st April 2013 for one year with the provision to extend for a further 2 x 12 months (maximum of 3 years). The total value of these contracts is £4.8 million.
These contracts provide key public health services including weight management, healthy lifestyle, smoking cessation, school nurses, infection control and other smaller contracts. These services are required to support the mandatory and statutory public health responsibilities of the Council, and to contribute towards meeting the outcomes set out in the health and wellbeing strategy.
As part of this extension process; all of the services have been subject to a review in terms of need, performance and providing value for money. Some minor contract variations are proposed as an outcome of this review.