As an Integrated Care System, we believe in the need to move upstream, from a focus on treatment towards prevention.
We recognise that health and wellbeing are strongly influenced by wider determinants, including where we live, our lifestyles, behaviours and social connections, socio-economic factors, as well as access to high quality health and care services.
We will work together, to support and enable the people of mid and south Essex to have the best possible physical and mental health, wellbeing and quality of life across the life course.
We will adopt a partnership approach to creating a culture and environment which tackles inequalities and addresses the wider determinants of health.
What we want to achieve
Across mid and south Essex, a wide range of activities are carried out with preventative intent within local authority- and NHS services. The forming of our Integrated Care System, and the wider policy environment, have prompted a fresh look at the potential to achieve more through harmonising efforts
The aims of our ICS preventive activity are:
- To improve the health, wellbeing and healthy life expectancy of our population, reducing inequalities in outcomes, experience and access where they exist.
- To promote independence, enabling those with long term conditions and other needs to exercise choice and control over their care, including options for improved self-management.
- To coordinate and maximise effective action across settings and sectors, particularly increasing the preventative impact delivered through healthcare services, so that residents can access coherent support wherever they interact with health and care services.
- To enable our staff to work in different ways – promoting wellness, social connection and self-management.
- To enhance broader social and economic development, in line with the Robert Wood Johnson model of wider determinants of health.
- To steward shared resources effectively, seeking to achieve the greatest sustainable value for our population.
Behaviour change and self-care campaigns
Whether it’s eating more fruit and veg or eating less sugar, exercising more or drinking less alcohol; we will be working with our partners to help our local residents to make sustainable behaviour changes.
Digital solutions
By providing access to a range of digital services, we can enable patients to recognise their individual health risks and symptoms and manage their personal response to those risks – taking care to acknowledge and account for existing digital inequalities.
Supporting health and care professionals
To empower and enable individuals to take responsibility for their own health, health and care professionals need to have access to the information, resources and evidence base to effectively support their patients. We will support staff to work alongside patients and residents to ensure self-care is part of everyday life; improving health, wellbeing and self-management of long-term conditions.
Redesigning pathways to focus on prevention
Where pathways need to be changed we will to place a greater focus on either prevention or self-care.
Using analytics to make robust decisions
The NHS Long Term Plan sets out an ambition to use population health analytics to develop more targeted, preventative health interventions which will be vital to the sustainability of the NHS. Across mid and south Essex, we are already working to measure and interpret health outcomes and their association with the determinants of health, and analyse healthcare consumption by different populations.
When planning for and commissioning preventative healthcare, we must accept that the true value is unlikely to be realised for at least five to ten years – and often much later in terms of long-term outcomes, such as healthy life expectancy.
Where are we now?
Behaviour change and self-care campaigns
Health messages come at us thick and fast. Whether it’s eating more fruit and veg or eating less sugar, exercising more or drinking less alcohol; we will be working with our partners to ensure that interventions that are delivered help our citizens to make sustainable behaviour change
Digital solutions
By providing access to a range of digital services, we can enable patients to recognise their individual health risks and symptoms and manage their personal response to those risks – taking care to acknowledge and account for existing digital inequalities.
Supporting health and care professionals
To empower and enable individuals to take responsibility for their own health, health and care professionals need to have access to the information, resources and evidence base to effectively support their patients. We will support staff to work alongside patients and residents to ensure self-care is part of everyday life; improving health, wellbeing and self-management of long-term conditions.
Redesigning pathways to focus on prevention
Where pathways need to be changed we will to place a greater focus on either prevention or self-care.
Using analytics to make robust decisions
The NHS Long Term Plan sets out an ambition to use population health analytics to develop more targeted, preventative health interventions which will be vital to the sustainability of the NHS. Across mid and south Essex we are already working to measure and interpret health outcomes and their association with the determinants of health, and analyse healthcare consumption by different populations.
When planning for and commissioning preventative healthcare, we must accept that the true value is unlikely to be realised for at least five to ten years – and often much later in terms of long-term outcomes, such as healthy life expectancy.