Self Assessment

Hello. I'm Jackie Sochocka and I'd like to tell you about the annual health self-assessment process.

This is a way of working that gets people together to discuss, and decide, how well they think their local and regional health organisations are working to improve the health of people with a learning disability.

I developed this way of working for the Valuing People team, and we tested it out for the first time three years ago, in 2008,in the Yorkshire and Humber region.

Partnership boards, and health and social care organisations in that region,thought that it was a really good way of working.

They liked it because it brings people together from all walks of life to together discuss some of the good things that are happening in their localities in that region, but also to together decide what they think is still a priority for further work, and how to do that.

The other nine regions in England also decided that they'd like to adopt this way of working, and I'm very happy to say that by autumn of this year all ten Strategic Health Authorities in England will have completed, at the very least, their first annual health self-assessment.

You might have been involved in one of these self-assessments in your local area, either by attending a getting ready meeting, or by going to a big health check-up day. So you will know just how much information you get about many of the good things that are happening in your area, and also about the priorities that people have agreed for the coming year.

Now all that information is going to be gathered together and stored in one place, here on the Public Health Observatory site.

In the next few months, regions will be working with the Public Health Observatory to store their information here.

So I hope that by the end of the year you will have a rich library of information about all the excellent work that's happening right across this country to improve the health and wellbeing of people with a learning disability.