Author Tony Beddow 1.11.18
Purpose
This short report gives progress made with our policy development process since the last Central Council meeting.
Members may recall that central Council previously agreed that four possible areas of work could form the focus of policy development in the coming months.
These are:
- Mental Health – building upon the (inchoate) policy produced by the Labour’s National Policy Forum
- Public Health policy – building upon current SHA policy, identifying gaps and undertaking work to fill them
- A National Care Service – exploring the boundaries of this emerging concept, its funding and governance and other aspects deemed relevant.
- The needs of carers – exploring the different needs of young and old carers, carers in rural and urban areas, carers with their own care needs, and other characteristics that require a policy response.
Progress to date
Member working groups have been established for b) and c) with co-conveners being Mike Roberts and Dr Tony Jewell for b) and Dr Brian Fisher and Tony Beddow for c).
Members of a) have been identified and two possible co-convenors are, at the time of writing, discussing how they might take this forward.
In all cases, membership has been drawn from different pars of the UK and from different experiences – with a workable group total of 7- 8 members.
The needs of carers did not engender much interest and this group remains to be formed.
Next steps
Co – conveners have been asked to provide a “scoping report” to the next Central Council setting out their proposals for the topics, questions or enquiries that they seek to explore or address, the timescales for doing this, and the target date for bringing a draft policy document to Central Council for debate and either adoption after amendment, or for further revision and work.
Central Council is requested to note this report.