Nov 3, 2014 - sharing evidence about what works to support people so they take ... work in the East Midlands between PHE
Strategic Partner response to PHE's Priorities: From Evidence into Action: opportunities to protect and improve the nation’s health The Health and Care Voluntary Sector Strategic Partnership welcome the publication of Public Health England's priorities in From Evidence into Action Opportunities to Protect and Improve the Nation's Health, especially the emphasis on partnership working across sectors, including the voluntary and community sector (VCS). We are pleased that this has been published in conjunction with NHS England Five Year Forward View and that it resonates with the preventative element in The Care Act. The Strategic Partners welcome the potential of a sea change with more efforts towards promoting wellbeing, preventing ill health and intervening early. The Strategic Partnership is committed to working with Public Health England, NHS England and the Department of Health to improve the nation's health and reduce health inequalities by: sharing evidence about what works to support people so they take greater charge of improving their own health. identifying and dismantling structural barriers to people being able to improve their own health. supporting the VCS to evaluate and share learning from its work with disadvantaged communities. It was useful to read the cross-cutting impact of deprivation on PHE's priorities, however it was not clear how PHE will begin to address the impact of growing poverty on our already worsening health inequalities. We would like to work with PHE to address the "causes of the causes" of health inequalities, taking a holistic approach which is core to the approach of much of the VCS. We are keen for the work on developing the economic case for preventionand that this includes the case voluntary sector interventions. The Strategic Partners would be keen to work with PHE to support them publish evidence and intelligence in a way that is relevant and accessible to the voluntary sector and to communities. This needs to build on the excellent partnership work in the East Midlands between PHE and Strategic Partner One East Midlands. In addition to the very valuable work on the economic case for prevention, there would be considerable value in measuring the impact of other national policies, such as Welfare Reform, on health inequalities and the costs they may bring to different parts of the system. We agree with the focus of unleashing the power of place-based approaches , in partnership in asset based approaches and welcome the commitment to further develop the evidence base on community development interventions, and the Strategic Partnership would be well placed to support this. We would like to work with PHE and NHS England to co-design the national evidence-based diabetes prevention programme (and other future prevention
programmes around dementia, CVD and cancers for example), bringing in expertise of working with communities least likely to use services and those experiencing the worst health outcomes. The Equalities Working Group of the Strategic Partnership would be well placed to share its expertise, to ensure that this work benefits all parts of our society. We can see value in NHS England and PHE business planning teams meeting with the Health and Care Voluntary Sector Strategic Partnership to co-design approaches to working with the VCS in implementing the Five Year Forward View and from Evidence into Action. However, please note that the voluntary sector is under threat from funding cuts. Without assurance of funding there is a risk to: smaller, trusted, organisations, which are most able to address specific inequalities (in geographic communities and communities of interest) infrastructure organisations, which enable smaller organisations to work more strategically and can help public health and the NHS to engage with the voluntary sector and the communities they serve.
Drafted by: Jo Whaley, Regional Voices, A Health and Care Voluntary Sector Strategic Partner, with input from the wide Strategic Partnership 3/11/14.
