ABOUT 50 people attended the launch of health and wellbeing action groups in Cockermouth and Maryport this week.

They highlighted areas which needed to be tackled - such as healthy weight, particularly in children, and smoking cessation in certain groups.

Other areas discussed were mental wellbeing, alcohol and falls.

The towns' Integrated Care Community (ICC) held the launches on Tuesday.

Each ICC started with a GP lead, a lead from the community and acute hospital trusts and adult social care. The county council's Valerie Ayre is the public health lead.

"For the past six to eight months we have been working as an integrated care team, now we are moving on to being part of the community," said Valerie.

"This is phase two of our work as an ICC. We want to get people that are interested to join us and help come up with ideas."

There are three ICCs in Allerdale - Workington, Maryport and Cockermouth, Keswick and Solway.

The Cockermouth launch was attended by representatives from various groups, including the patient participation group, Age UK and rotary.

Following a 10-minute presentation, people shared their views.

Mrs Ayre said: "Lots of conversations happened and varied topics were discussed with people giving local reasons why they felt certain things should be prioritised.

"Everybody was in agreement that healthy weight, particularly in children, should be a priority, along with targeting pregnant mums and manual workers in our towns with information around smoking cessation.

"Other areas that were highlighted were around mental wellbeing (including suicide and self harm), particularly in young people, alcohol in middle-aged females, falls and social connectedness for our older community.

"We are pulling together an action plan of priorities from these discussions and will be having further meetings with partners and the community to move forward the prevention agenda across our ICCs."