BURY will see its health and social care transformed in an ambitious £23 million plan.

A partnership between Bury Council, NHS Bury Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), and health and voluntary and community organisations, is aiming to improve services and patient experiences.

Deliver in a the town's Locality Plan over the next four years it will see a series of system wide transformational 'shifts' in order to improve services, care, individual outcomes and experiences.

Council interim chief executive Pat Jones-Greenhalgh said: "We are ambitious for our borough and doing our best to work together to try and make our health and care system as good and sustainable as it can be for the future.

"By 2021 we will have a proactive not reactive system in place, that equips staff with the skills they need, creates relationships to work co-operatively and provides people with the right care, in the right place, at the right time and by the right professional.

"We have a long journey ahead but we are determined and committed to enabling every single person who lives in our borough to lead a happy and healthy life."

Plans include promoting wellbeing in the community, tackling problems with deprivation and improving work and skills, housing and education, and building new relationships between local people and public services.

All areas of healthcare and under the spot light, with patients seeing changes in everything from local hospitals to prescriptions.

One scheme includes introduction of Home First which aims to reduce the number of hospital admissions and increase the numbers who can be discharged from hospital to home by providing more support and health care in the community.

It covers all age ranges, including children and young people, and focusses on palliative and end of life care.

CCG chief officer Stuart North said: "By having more co-ordinated services in place and by having more of a focus on the right support in the right place and reducing inequalities, local people will remain well for longer than is currently the case.

"There is a lot of hard work to do, but we are excited by the challenges that lie ahead and the rewards this will bring for the people of Bury."

Of the funding, £19.2 million has been secured from the Greater Manchester Transformation fund, and a further £4 million will be locally invested

Lord Peter Smith, chair of the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership Board added: "Right across our region, the Greater Manchester Transformation Fund as part of devolution is allowing us to invest in local services to ensure we have a sustainable health and care system, fit for the twenty first century.

"There are exciting plans in place for Bury and we look forward to seeing these changes being implemented in the coming years."