Last month saw the launch of our report ‘Checking the Nation's Health – the value of council scrutiny'', at Public Health England's national conference ‘NHS Health Check 2014: Share, Listen, Act'.

We supported councillors in Devon, the London Boroughs of Barnet, Harrow and Newham, Lancashire and South Ribble and Tameside to understand the benefits of the NHS Health Check, the barriers to take up and how it can be improved.

Public Health England, the Local Government Association and NHS England have backed the NHS Health Check programme as an opportunity to tackle avoidable deaths, disability and reduce health inequalities.

Their ‘10 point plan' published in 2013 included support from the Centre for Public Scrutiny (CfPS) for council scrutiny of the programme's effectiveness.

We at the Centre have once again used our ‘return on investment' approach to help councillors look beyond traditional stakeholders to understand challenges and identify practical solutions.

This was particularly effective, demonstrating that scrutiny can bring the right people together - people who use services, professionals from the public, private and voluntary sectors and politicians - to explore how best to collaborate to create improved outcomes for those most at risk of poor health.

By focusing on NHS Health Check, council scrutiny proved to be a catalyst to bring councils and primary care together.

Councillors looked at the effectiveness of NHS Health Check from commissioning to delivery and wanted to hear views from clinicians and people who use services.

As well as highlighting learning from the case studies, ‘Checking the Nation's Health' makes recommendations to national and local health system leaders about the need for NHS Health Check to be accepted as part of a whole system approach to tackling health inequalities, self-responsibility and prevention.

Where this happens it can help councils and general practice co-operate to develop improved health and social care services for their local population.

The report highlights a potentially stronger role for health and wellbeing boards to make sure that the NHS Health Check programme supports priorities for outcomes identified through joint strategic needs assessments and joint health and wellbeing strategies, ensuring that NHS Health Check helps those most at risk of poor health and begins to tackle health inequalities.

The areas found a potential cultural barrier to effective NHS Health Checks which is the difference between the ‘medical model' of general practice and the ‘social model' of local government.

Both are valid, but combining them could give real impetus to new solutions to intractable health issues.

Areas identified total potential savings of over £4m if their recommendations are accepted and demonstrated how the Health Check can be effective if it is accessible in community settings, commissioned as part of a whole system approach to tackling poor health, or is targeted to reach those who can most benefit.

As well as these quantitative outcomes from scrutiny, qualitative benefits reported were that scrutiny brought together knowledge from health professionals with knowledge from local communities, putting NHS Health Check at the centre of a whole system process.

The Centre will be continuing to support and demonstrate how council scrutiny is important in the fight against poor health.  By spotting health conditions early, councils are able to identify significant cost savings. 

Our ‘return on investment' approach to council scrutiny can be a catalyst that adds value to councillors' scrutiny role, helping local areas to inform national practice. We hope other areas will see what their peers have achieved and take the report's recommendations on board.

Tim Gilling is deputy executive director, Centre for Public Scrutiny