Where do we want to focus now?
Utilising the review process and feedback from the engagement process, it was agreed that the existing short-term priorities of the Health and Wellbeing Strategy were correct & but that there were a number of areas that need to be intensified. These are as follows:
Tackling loneliness and social isolation for all: Social isolation is detrimental for an individual’s physical and mental health and therefore having strong social networks and positive social relationships is good for our health and wellbeing. Engagement with residents has highlighted the impact of social isolation not just on our older residents, but the wider community. Coventry has a real opportunity to build on our community assets to improve social connections.
With Coventry’s diverse population, the experience of isolation may have a new slant, particularly with different communities coming into the city as a result of continued migration and civil conflict. With this comes the challenge of working in the overlap of the priorities and being responsive to their needs and ensuring there are the relevant services in place to meet this need.
- Improving mental health for all: Nationally, the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted significantly on many people’s mental health, as monitored by ongoing surveillance reporting. Throughout our engagement with residents in developing this strategy, many raised specific concerns around the mental health of children and young people as well as older adults, as well as the importance of ensuring equity of access to services.
- Focus on employment and homelessness as a prevention opportunity: Despite growing opportunities, innovation and improvement in average earnings in the city, there has been an increase in the number of residents unemployed and economically inactive. Understanding the impact of the pandemic & the cost-of-living crisis on communities (across the life course) is therefore a key priority given the increased risk of further exacerbating wider inequalities.
- Strengthen work with communities: The city’s diversity and cohesion are assets to Coventry, however there is some indication that overall feelings of belonging, and cohesion, may have reduced over the last few years. A commitment to strengthening work with communities is paramount, as there is a real opportunity to build on the work delivered during the pandemic and continue to unlock the power of local assets by improving the connectivity between the Health & Wellbeing board and communities and the Health & Wellbeing board and place-based working.
- The need for co-production to achieve the priorities and the importance of engaging with the community to influence and design solutions. There is a call for stronger links, information sharing and partnership working across a range of services. The One Coventry Plan asked, “what will the Coventry of 2030 look and feel like to you?” and a majority of responses pointed to a need for more communication, collaboration, and engagement.
Figure 5: Our short-term priorities
How will we measure success?
Our ambition for Coventry is to ensure everyone can enjoy good health and, that we reduce health inequalities. To achieve this, we are committed to developing a new performance framework that is shaped by the core pillars within the population health framework and ties into the Coventry & Warwickshire Strategy & the One Coventry performance framework. The Health and Wellbeing Board will continually review the activity to achieve the priority objectives and will consider any additional steps that need to be taken to ensure effective progress.
The following principles, which form part of the Coventry and Warwickshire Health and Wellbeing Concordat, will continue to underpin the way we work as Health and Wellbeing Board partners:
- Prioritising prevention: we will tackle the causes of health-related problems to reduce the impact of ill health on people’s lives, their families and communities. We will seek to address the root causes of problems, listening to local people’s priorities and acting on their concerns.
- Strengthening communities: we will support strong and stable communities. We will listen to residents to understand what they want from the services we provide and encourage them, to lead change themselves where possible.
- Co-ordinating services: we will work together to design services that take account of the complexity of people’s lives and their overlapping health and social needs. We will focus on the best way to achieve good outcomes for people, reducing the number of interactions people have with our services and avoiding multiple interventions from different providers.
- Sharing responsibility: we value the distinct contributions of all organisations that are represented on the Health and Wellbeing Board. We will maintain partnerships between the public sector, voluntary and community sector, local businesses and residents, recognising that we share a responsibility to transform the health and wellbeing of our communities. We will pool resources, budgets and accountabilities where it will improve services for the public.
Working through the relevant Partnership Boards across our population health framework, we will develop a reporting framework and schedule to update the Health and Wellbeing Board on the progress of action plan development, and the key measures of success relating to these priorities. In addition, we will continue to monitor and respond to the changing local and national context, to ensure that our approach remains relevant and impactful for the citizens of Coventry.