A ROSY picture was painted of the future of the health services in Bolton as different bodies endeavour to work more closely.

Dr Wirin Bhatiani explained how the Locality Plan will look in the future as health and social care organisations break down barriers to create a more cohesive health service.

In response to a question from Tony Ward, the governance lead on Bolton Clinical Commissioning Group's (CCG) board, about how the locality plan would look to patients, Dr Bhatiani said: "It's about people who receive care, the public, patients and about who will deliver this care.

"For it to be successful both need to come together. What will success look like? What will people feel and see differently and what will staff feel and see differently?

"There are many stories where care is fragmented where people have to tell their stories many times. They don't know who is in charge of their care and they don't know who to call.

"Early help is often unavailable to people because they don't know how to get it and staff work in different organisations with different management people and messages are mixed because people think the organisations rather than what it's about which is the patients.

"If it works it will be a story of a person who will know where to go immediately and what they are hoping to achieve and how they are going to manage and have a real understanding of it and there will be different aspects of health care who will be there when they need help.

"Organisation boundaries will crumble and we won't think about them we will be all together thinking about the person. There won't be a big switch, I think it's happening now, we're slowly evolving now."

This time last year, the Bolton Health and Social Care Partnership was awarded £28 million funding for the following three years to implement changes in health and social care through the Bolton Locality Plan which focuses on employment, falls, long-term conditions, dementia, social care needs and social isolation.

The plan is being effected through a partnership 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.

At the CCG board meeting on Friday heard a patient story was told about a man and wife who were both nearing the end of their lives and were able to die at home together side by side.

It was praised in the meeting as a good example of a variety of services working together to fulfil a family's wishes. Dr Bhatiani asked that the patient story at the next meeting in April would be a bad example of services working together so that the board can see where improvements can be made.