Charities and voluntary groups working to improve health in Great Yarmouth and Waveney will be able to apply for a pot of cash worth £200,000 a year.The area's primary care trust (PCT) will make the money available in grants for each of the next three years.

Charities and voluntary groups working to improve health in Great Yarmouth and Waveney will be able to apply for a pot of cash worth £200,000 a year.

The area's primary care trust (PCT) will make the money available in grants for each of the next three years. It is aimed at helping the small non-profit groups who are quietly working to improve people's health. An organisation can apply if it has a turnover of less than £100,000 and is helping to meet the trust's aim of improving residents' health faster than anywhere else in the country.

The programme will be run in partnership with Waveney Community Forum CVS and Voluntary Norfolk, which both work to help voluntary groups in the area. The aim is to spend £100,000 on Waveney projects and the same amount on Yarmouth projects.

Lyn Blizzard, health improvement principal at Great Yarmouth and Waveney PCT, said: “These organisations are often in touch with groups of people who do not always want to engage with the Health Service and they respond to local needs by involving and empowering local residents in the delivery of services - and are often run by local people for local people.”

A similar grants scheme has been run in partnership with social services in the past, but had come to an end and had not given out money for several years. In April next year the PCT will become a member of a joint board with Suffolk County Council and the voluntary sector, which will give out grants to help meet local improvement targets. The two schemes may merge in time, but the PCT wants to start giving out money now.

Organisations in Waveney who are interested in the grants programme should contact Waveney Community Forum CVS on 01502 582201 and those in Great Yarmouth should contact Voluntary Norfolk on 01493 845925.