Senior Responsible Officers:
Dr Guy Pilkington
Newcastle Gateshead CCG
Professor Peter Kelly
Public Health England
Amanda Healy
Durham County Council
Dame Jackie Daniel
Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
This workstream is focusing on how we can collaborate across services and locations to improve health and reduce health inequalities – which can vary significantly between communities.
This informative video from The King’s Fund usefully explains population health and highlights why coordination and joint planning is key to improving health and wellbeing.
Our approach to this work will be through a programme of public engagement, early identification of risk factors, screening and workforce development to better prevent, detect and manage the biggest causes of premature death in our area: cancer, cardiovascular disease and respiratory disease.
Priority areas are to support people in developing a sense of control and resilience in relation to their health and wellbeing, and taking action to tackle specific challenges. This includes helping people with long term health conditions to feel more confident and able to manage their health and situation; enabling them to be more independent and reducing the need for health and care services to intervene.
A board has been established to maximise the benefits of working at scale across the region and immediate priorities are to:
- Reduce tobacco addiction and ensure a smoke-free NHS across the region by 2020.
- Reduce alcohol related harm.
This will be delivered through a programme of communications and engagement, workforce development/training and working closely with partners in the community.
A recent significant investment, to support NHS services in developing a culture of preventing ill health, has been the appointment of three public health consultants to work across hospital settings. These specialists will provide advice and support to improve the health and wellbeing of patients and staff, making every contact count.
For more information contact emma.roycroft@nhs.net