HEALTH bosses are hoping to get the public involved in plans which will shake-up Bolton's health and social care.

The town is taking hold of £28.8m in Greater Manchester funding towards a three years plan to transform how services are delivered in the borough.

The Bolton Health and Social Care Partnership has been awarded the funding over the next three years to implement changes in health and social care through the Bolton Locality Plan.

The groundbreaking partnership is made up of NHS Bolton Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), NHS Foundation Trust, Bolton Council, GM Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, Healthwatch Bolton, Bolton GP Federation and Bolton CVS.

Speaking to the Bolton Health and Wellbeing Board, CCG chief officer Su Long said it was important to get the right message across about the changes.

She said: "Now we need to ask what transformation is needed and work with members of the public to get that right.

"I think the project implementing with the methodology of cooperative design. We need to make sure the the project is planned with the people who will be effected.

"We want people to know you wont always have to go to hospital because you will have proper sufficient support around you at home. We want people to know what's available in the community and link them to that support in the community.

"We've had some very good feedback so far and we will build on that.

"We want to create a plan to talk to staff and the public about these plans and how it can be influenced by them."

The Locality Plan puts into action a method of dealing with the forecasts of a financial gap of £162 million for health and care in Bolton by 2020.

It is designed to tackle a fall in workforce numbers, finance and the increasing demand on hospital care.

While the full funding has not come through to the partnership yet, local health services have supported the start of developing some of the schemes.

These include the international recruitment of 75 nurses to fill Foundation Trust vacancies, expansion of mental health provisions, improved training and support for care home staff including one extra hour of care per

day for residents with the most complex needs, and bringing specialised roles such as physiotherapists and mental health practitioners into local neighbourhoods.