The pledges - improving health

Salford City Council works with partners such as the Primary Care Trust and the hospital trust to promote healthy lifestyles and tackle health inequalities in the city and provide services for local people.The council works with the PCT and hospital trust to develop more preventive services and locate these within the community wherever possible. This is leading to the development of a number of new facilities providing a range of health and council services.

What went well in 2009/10

• 5,000 people took part in organised events and activities which involved at least 30 minutes of moderate physical activity.
• The council worked in communities to promote healthy lifestyles, for instance through stop smoking events and healthy eating cookery classes.
• During the cold snap in January, council staff volunteered to make telephone contact with over 1,300 older people to make sure that they had access to food, heating and medicine.
• A total of 2.5 million healthy school meals were provided.
• The council created the city's first outdoor gym in Ordsall Park in partnership with Salford NHS.
• We opened the Humphrey Booth Resource Centre, providing excellent and cutting edge care for people with dementia.

Our challenges

• Salford's teenage pregnancy rate is higher than the regional and national averages and is not reducing as it is elsewhere.
• Two thirds of adults and a quarter of children in Salford are overweight or obese.  Without action, this will increase to over 80% of adults and nearly 50% of children by 2050.
• This year we will be focusing on making sure that adult social care services suit people rather than expecting people to fit in with our services.

What we will do

To reduce teenage pregnancy we will:

• Develop contraception and sexual health services to reduce teenage pregnancy rates.

To make sure adult social care services are fit for people we will:

• Provide at least 30% of people who use the services, and their carers, with a personal budget to give them control over how their care is delivered.

To reduce obesity and encourage people to be more healthy we will:

• Create 14 new outdoor gym facilities in parks. 
• Increase the number of allotment plots to promote healthy food and increase opportunities for physical exercise.
• Hold at least 12 healthy living awareness sessions for older people in the community at sheltered housing sites.

This page was last updated on 4 May 2011