Coventry Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2019-2023

Our health is shaped by a range of factors. These include: the wider socio-economic determinants of health, such as our education and the housing we live in; our lifestyles and health behaviours, for example our diet, whether we smoke; the health and care we receive; and the communities we live and work in, and the social networks we belong to. There is consensus nationally that to reduce health inequalities and improve health outcomes, we need a population health approach, which means working with a range of partners, as well as communities to do this.

Our population health framework, which is taken from a model developed by the King’s Fund (a national health and care think tank), will underpin everything we do as a health and wellbeing system in Coventry to achieve our long-term vision for change.

For us in Coventry this means taking action on:

• The wider determinants of health – embedding the Marmot City approach by working in partnership across different services and organisations to tackle health inequalities through addressing the social determinants of health such as income and wealth, education, housing, transport, environment and leisure; to break the link between poverty and poor health
• Our health behaviours and lifestyles – aligning and co-ordinating prevention programmes across the system to maximise impact and tackle barriers to healthy lifestyle, including around mental wellbeing, diet, exercise, smoking and drugs and alcohol
• The places and communities we live in and with – working together in our places and with our communities to mobilise solutions for improved health and wellbeing, informed by our understanding of local needs and assets from our place-based JSNAs
• An integrated health and care system – health and social care commissioners and providers working together in a joined-up way to commission and deliver seamless local services in Coventry

We plan to invest our energies and resources in making sure these ‘enablers’ are in place; that we get these right and we will make sure that all of our plans and activities consider each of these components and – most importantly – the connections between them. By focusing on the enabling components, we will be able to deliver our short-term priorities more effectively. The Health and Wellbeing Board will be the place where these connections are made at a strategic level.