The Health Authority is part of the NHS. It is responsible for making sure that health service improvements for people who live in Southampton and South West Hampshire are well planned and delivered.
Funded by the government, our role is to:
• find out the health needs of over 561,000 local people
• plan services to meet those needs in the most effective way
• improve local health services and the health of our population
• provide support to the local health community and encourage opportunities for development
• manage the provision of family health services - GPs, dentists, pharmacists and opticians
• make sure that services are of the right standard and quality
• work with other agencies to make sure services are coherently planned
• control outbreaks of infectious diseases
• register and monitor nursing homes
• investigate complaints
It is the responsibility of the Health Authority to make sure that the local NHS is working to improve health and tackle health inequalities and it now has stronger powers to improve the health of local residents and oversee the effectiveness of the local NHS.
The government has also given the Health Authority a new ‘duty of partnership’ to work closely with social services, local authorities, voluntary organisations and the local community.
The Health Authority is responsible for producing the local Health Improvement Programme, which brings together the two key methods of achieving this:
• Making sure that all parts of the local NHS work together to modernise the NHS - applying and sharing good practice
• Driving the achievement of agreed targets for health improvement and service delivery
