THE new health boss at Oxfordshire County Council has set out his plans to improve the county's wellbeing.

Ansaf Azhar, Oxfordshire's new director of public health, gave an annual report into the state of the county's health at a meeting of the council's Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee last week.

Mr Azhar said he had only been in post for a few months, but wanted to focus on improving the health of poorer areas of Oxfordshire, as well as neglected rural areas and BAME communities.

His presentation said that 'people in Oxfordshire have better health and the number of people dying early is significantly lower than the England average.'

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But Mr Azhar added the picture across the county was not perfect.

There are 10 areas of the county which are among the 20 per cent most deprived parts of England.

He said he wanted to pilot a scheme in deprived areas of Banbury to figure out why people living in poorer areas were often less healthy than in more wealthy areas.

This scheme would also be carried out in other deprived areas of Oxfordshire, including at Blackbird Leys.

He told councillors on the HOSC that Oxfordshire was also facing health challenges in rural areas where public transport and other services had begun to disappear.

Mr Azhar said this would be something he would like to focus on in the future.