Ex-leader of Barnsley Council to become country’s first ever Deputy Mayor for Health
Sir Houghton will manage a £4.6 billion budget of the NHS in South Yorkshire
South Yorkshire has chosen a “leader of a generation” to become the first Deputy Mayor for Health in the country.
Sir Steve Houghton has been appointed to the brand new role as Deputy Mayor for Health and NHS Integrated Care Board (ICB) chair, announced at the official opening of a £24m new children’s hospital facility in Sheffield.
The Spark in Attercliffe brings clinical care and child health technology development together under one roof.
It is the location for some Sheffield Children’s Hospital outpatient appointments and is the home of the National Centre for Child Health Technology.
Sir Houghton is a Labour politician who has been a councillor since 1988.
He led Barnsley Council for nearly three decades, with a focus on health and inequalities.
He said one of his big successes in his previous role was 'health on the high street’, which “helped to transform people's relationship with the NHS” in Barnsley.
The project saw a community diagnostic centre and a health and wellbeing hub in Barnsley town centre, delivering more than 220,000 appointments, increasing breast screening attendance by 22 per cent and reduced missed appointments by 24 per cent.
Sir Houghton said: "It will save lives because some of those people sadly will have had tests they don't want, but getting in early gives them the treatment they need."
He plans to roll out similar prevention work across the region in his new role, which will see him work with a newly appointed team to manage the £4.6 billion commissioning budget of the South Yorkshire ICB.
South Yorkshire Mayor Oliver Coppard said Sir Houghton is “leader of his generation” who's “transformed Barnsley,” and has “always been focussed on how to help and support children and young people”.
Mayor Coppard said he worked with Prime Minister Andy Burnham to get this Deputy Mayor for Health plan “on the books”.
“It was Andy and I that brought this to the table. We've gone first, Greater Manchester will be next,” the Mayor said.
Sir Houghton will have a mountain to climb in his new role, taking on the Mayor’s ambition to make South Yorkshire the healthiest region in the country, from one that faces “significant” health inequalities.
People in Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham spend around five to six fewer years in good health than the England average, while healthy life expectancy can vary by as much as 20 years between the region’s most and least affluent communities.
Sir Houghton said: "Poverty and deprivation are the big things that get in the way for people.
"People are very low incomes, low skills, knowledge, understanding, education, not where we would want it to be, those have a big impact on people's health.
“We've got to turn that round. Now, that isn't just health initiatives, it's learning and education initiatives. It's employment initiatives, getting people to work and so on.
"Everyone agrees things have got to change. Everyone agrees its got to be system change, and everyone's agrees we've got to move from treatment into prevention and well being. That's easiest said than done, but if we're all on that page, we'll find a way. "
Mayor Coppard said the role would involve some programmes that would cover the whole of South Yorkshire, but some would be “tailored to those places, and those people who need the help the most”.
He said: “At the moment, a load of those decisions are taken by a national system. Sometimes by the Secretary of Health in London.
“We've made the case, and won the argument, that ultimately, those decisions should be taken closer to South Yorkshire by somebody in the shape of Sir Steve Houghton who understands this place as well as anybody, can join up those systems, but also tailor those solutions.
"We're the first place in the country to be doing this. So it's exciting. But it comes with challenges."
Sir Houghton said: "I got into politics in the first instance, to make things better.
"I got into this job, to try and make things better. As you know, it's a huge, huge task with so many different facets to it.
"But there is so much enthusiasm, and ambition in South Yorkshire, now to make that change, so I'm looking forward to it."