The health and wellbeing boards (HWBs) were established through the Health and Social Care Act 2012, but it wasn’t until April 2013 that they came into existence.

They were created with three objectives in mind: to encourage integration of health and social care, to agree the health and wellbeing priorities of their local population and to develop a strategy to improve the related outcomes.

Eighteen months later, the NHS Five Year Forward View was published, setting out a radical vision of the health service and its relationship with social care and public health. Central to that vision are collaboration and innovation at a local level – a view broadly echoed by the recommendations in the London Health Commission’s report, Better Health for London.