The new board tasked with transforming the health of the county has been warned it faces tough times.

The Oxfordshire Health and Wellbeing Board is among the first around the country to be set up ahead of a massive shake-up of the NHS and the social care system.

Its aim is to improve the health of the county amid the significant cuts faced by the public sector.

The group, chaired by county council leader Keith Mitchell and also featuring Matthew Tait, chief executive of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Primary Care Trust (PCT) cluster, will pull together all agencies involved in health and social care for Oxfordshire.

It met for the first time on Thursday in front of a packed public gallery.

But Jonathan McWilliam, the county’s director of public health, presented a report warning there were tough times ahead for all agencies involved.

He said: “Our purpose is to lead and coordinate the actions of many individual organisations so as to make real improvements to the health of the people of Oxfordshire in its broadest terms.”

But he warned: “We do this in the face of a number of potent challenges, including demographic pressures in the population, especially the increasing number and proportion of older people, many of whom need care, the persistence of small geographical areas of social deprivation, especially in Banbury and Oxford but also in parts of our market towns.

“We also do this in the face of the recent increase in financial stringency and tightening of the public purse which affects all public sector organisations and has knock-on effects for voluntary organisations.”

The Government wants GPs to take control of most of the NHS budget, instead of primary care trusts like NHS Oxfordshire, in a move it claims will give patients more choice Oxfordshire is one of the areas leading the way by setting up a ‘pathfinding’ GP consortium. It has started trialling some of the proposed changes ahead of the dismantling of PCTs in 2013.

It is hoped the Health and Wellbeing Board will make the process ‘seamless’.

Mr McWilliam added: “The role of the new board is clear.

“It will only succeed if we all work together to make a real difference to the problems of Oxfordshire.

“The emerging priorities to be discussed during this meeting make a useful start in the process of leading the way forward.

“However, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

“Making a start is one thing, making a difference is another.

“The success of this board will need to be measured in terms of real outcomes achieved for the population we all serve.”