HEALTH and social care services in Blackburn with Darwen will work closer together after announcing a ground-breaking agreement.

A partnership board is being set up between the council's social services and the primary care trust to control nine different types of service where they both have a responsibility.

The two organisations have collaborated since the PCT was set up in 2001 on areas such as tackling teenage pregnancy rates.

But this new agreement makes the arrangement more formal and is one of the first of its kind in the country.

Bosses say the closer working and joint planning will benefit local people in the nine key areas -- services for children; older people; people with mental health problems, physical disabilities; learning disabilities; public health; substance misuse; sexual health and teenage pregnancy services.

The council's social services executive member, Coun Sue Reid, said: "We know that it can be frustrating both for the people who receive a range of services from the council and the PCT and for those professionals trying to work together informally to deliver these services.

"This formal partnership agreement will enable some of the bureaucratic obstacles to be removed, resulting in better use of resources to meet peoples needs and will help staff to work more effectively together for the benefit of vulnerable and ill people within Blackburn with Darwen."

One example of the joint working would be a "pooled" budget to care for people with learning disabilities where some services are provided by the PCT such as speech therapy and some by social services such as respite care.

PCT chief executive Vivien Aspey said: "There will be better integration and in some areas staff from both organisations will work out of the same office, sharing information systems and processes.

"A real prize will be the combined strength of joint planning for services and shared resources in the interests of more efficient services.

"At the outset, it needs to be made clear that our aim is not to create new organisations, quangos or trusts; rather it is to play to our strengths in partnership and to work together more efficiently and effectively."

PCT chairman Pauline Walsh said: "Making effective health services available to the people of Blackburn with Darwen is becoming more and more dependent on our relationship with the Council.

"Modern health care is much more than treating illness; it's also about preventing ill health and working with other agencies to overcome the adverse effects on health of the wider social and economic problems concerned with, for example, poverty; poor housing and education; crime and the environment."