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Local Government Planning for Health & Wellbeing
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Identifying Scope and Issues
It is important not to be overly ambitious in setting the scope of the MPHP. Successful completion of a relatively limited undertaking is better than abandonment due to unrealistic targets.
The choice of particular issues to be dealt within the MPHP is up to the people involved. The selection can be made by the steering committee based on discussion with others, a public survey, or a combination of these approaches.
At the first meeting members of the steering committee could be asked to present a brief paper on the issues they see as important. These suggestions would be discussed and combined into a list. In addition, the responsible officer for the MPHP could present a draft list for discussion.
Issues selected should be locally significant now, or likely to be so in the foreseeable future. A local solution to the issues should be possible, or at least a local contribution to resolving a more broad-scale problem, eg, cancer prevention. Consideration should be given to state and federal health priorities in determining priorities, but only as they relate to local issues.
Limit the final choice of issues to a manageable number in relation to the labour available for their investigation and policy development. Closely related issues could be bundled together for the purposes of setting up a working group or writing a section of the MPHP. If some significant issues have to be omitted, these should be noted in the MPHP for future attention.
An effective means of dealing with the issues selected for the MPHP is to set up a working group for each bundle of issues or for categories such as `community safety'. A clear brief and a general set of guidelines, is needed for each group to ensure consistency in output.
Working group members could come from the steering committee only, or they could be co-opted from staff within council and the community. Some issues can only be effectively tackled through co-operation with other agencies in the municipality or an adjoining municipality. It may be appropriate for a working group dealing with such an issue to include representatives from the other municipality.
A range of views should be represented on each working group with all members willing to contribute time and effort to developing that section of the MPHP. Their role could include collecting information, setting objectives, writing policies and/or recommending actions.
One member of each group could be nominated to report back regularly to the steering committee.
The first step is to make the community aware of the fact that a plan is being prepared. Publicity in the local or regional media (newspapers, radio, television) is one means of doing this. Personal contact with the local media people should be made as early as possible, to enlist their co-operation. They will have suggestions on presenting material in a form that they can most readily use. A regular newspaper column or feature articles dealing in turn with each health issue being tackled in the plan would be a very valuable.
Posters, notices and talks to various groups are also effective means of publicising the plan. A display can be mounted at council offices, public libraries, the main shopping centre, and any local festivals. A competition or quiz is a means of stimulating young people. A newsletter to ratepayers provides another opportunity for informing people.
Personal word-of-mouth contact is the best way of getting people involved. Networks of people who are business associates, friends, customers, or colleagues in voluntary organisations, churches and service clubs can be tapped for this purpose.
It is a good idea to make each steering committee member who is representing an interest group or organisation personally responsible for informing members of that group about the plan, and soliciting their views at appropriate stages in the process. This role is particularly important for groups such as community health, whose co-operation and support for aspects of the plan is vital.
Community liaison is important in developing a MPHP. The MPHP will be both more acceptable and more realistic in its proposals if the key players are given an influential role in framing its recommendations. Those included might be community health centres, local hospitals, schools, residents associations, industry/commerce, welfare organisations, and (for specialist advice) statewide and national bodies such as the Anti-Cancer Council and H&CS regional offices. The process of preparing the plan can be as important as the product in creating a positive attitude towards health and health services and opportunities for constructive action at the local level.
The legislation requires that MPHPs be prepared in consultation with the Secretary of the Department of Health & Community Services. In practice this means that discussion and negotiation with H&CS will need to be built in at key stages in the plan development process. It does not mean that plans require H&CS approval.
This will enable councils to take into consideration the following issues when developing MPHPs:-
To facilitate this, councils can liaise as necessary with the MPHP project officers and regional staff of the Department.
Councils beginning work on plan preparation should make arrangements to meet with departmental staff to discuss plan development processes, training and other assistance needs, and other preliminary issues before plan development gets under way.
While a sound information base is important for the plan, it will be necessary to limit the time and effort put into this phase of the process to ensure that there is adequate time for policy development, writing and review. Only material directly relevant to the identified issues should be collected, although it is tempting at the start to amass all available information.
The most useful source of information is personal knowledge, particularly that held by the steering committee, council officers and local workers. These people should be able to arrange access to other valuable sources: council reports, plans and files, consultant's reports to council, records of local groups, government authority reports and resource information.
It will be helpful when formulating the plan to have collected examples of policies and actions from other places which relate to similar issues. These may be adopted, adapted or used as a springboard to innovative solutions.
