Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what role the (a) Liverpool City Region Combine Authority, (b) Merseyside Resilience Forum, (c) St Helens Council and (d) St Helens CCG play in public health policy and practice.

Liverpool City Region Combined Authority does not have any specific public health functions, but it has a range of responsibilities which it can act on and interact with people’s health including relating to transport, housing and employment. Local resilience fora bring together multi-agency partnerships from local public services including the emergency services and the National Health Service to plan and prepare for localised incidents and emergencies. Upper tier local authorities, including St Helens Council, have a statutory duty to take steps to improve the health of their population and also play a vital role in protecting health locally. Clinical commissioning groups commission most of the hospital and community NHS services in the local area for which they are responsible.