Promoting good health in Sheffield

Director of Pubic Health Greg Fell

Sheffield is committed to reducing and eliminating health inequalities in the city.

Health inequalities affect everyone and action is being taken to continue to tackle them from now until 2024. These plans have been informed by an assessment of the current and future health, care and wellbeing needs of the people of Sheffield.

The ‘Sheffield Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy’ states that it is not right that some people can expect to live a less healthy life because of who they are or where they live and it highlights the three main areas that contribute to a healthy life: Starting Well, Living Well and Ageing Well.

Councillors will be asked to approve this strategy on 17^th April at Sheffield City Council’s cabinet meeting.

It paints an accurate and clear picture of how people are doing in the city; whether they are well and likely to stay well for a long time or not, what will help them stay well and what the barriers are to them keeping well physically and emotionally.

The aim is to improve the health and wellbeing of the poorest and most vulnerable the fastest.

The Sheffield Joint Health and Wellbeing Board is aware that ‘reaching our ambitions will require not just the insight, commitment and action of the partners around the Board, but that of all partners and stakeholders across Sheffield.’

The Board commits to ‘focusing its attention on these ambitions, using its time and resources to challenge the system to agree together what needs to change to get there, and then work together to do just that.’

Short term actions will follow the strategy and as no one sector has the answer to these difficult challenges it will be important for people and communities to work with services and business to deliver this strategy.

Work will focus on the person from birth to going to school; how a child develops, has a good education and then transitions to independence, how important it is for that person to have access to a home that supports their health and to have the opportunity for fulfilling work and the resources to support their needs. It will also focus on how that person should be able to walk or cycle in their local area whatever their age or ability, have access to care and support, meaningful social contact and an end to their life with dignity in a place of their choice.

Greg Fell, Director of Public Health said: ‘We look forward to working towards our goal of reducing health inequalities and increasing healthy life expectancy in Sheffield. We want to make sure that our action plans, built on engagement with people in the city, take the right approach so that we can deliver on our ambitions to sustain healthy and happy living in our city.’

Dr. Tim Moorhead, Co-Chair of the Sheffield Health and Wellbeing Board and Chair of NHS Sheffield Clinical Commissioning Group said: “We know that things like your age, the area in Sheffield you live in, your background and how much money you have can affect your health and wellbeing - focusing our efforts towards ‘Starting Well’, ‘Living Well’ and ‘Ageing Well’ will help make sure that everyone has the equal opportunity to live long, healthy lives, just as they deserve.

“We need to make sure that, as a city, we’re spending every penny wisely, and working closely together towards the same goals will help us achieve that.”

Greg Fell talks more about this in his short interview here:

Greg Fell, Director of Public Health

The full Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy is here.