Following today’s announcement on health reforms by the NHS Future Forum, Surrey County Council welcomed the proposal to give health and wellbeing boards a stronger role in holding GP commissioners to account.

Surrey County Council leader Dr Andrew Povey said: “This is excellent news. It gives the boards much more muscle in holding those commissioning health services to account and strengthens their power to drive improvements for the benefit of local people. Councils already commission many services that greatly influence health and this will really help to ratchet up the integration with social care.”

Surrey was among the first local authorities nationally to set up a health and wellbeing board. The board, comprising a mixture of councillors, commissioners and patients' representatives, held its first meeting on 13 May this year. From 2013 all councils are required to have one. Surrey’s board will act in ‘shadow’ form until then.