Public Health Issues
Recent Progress
We have made great strides in making the city a healthier place to be. This is being achieved by improving and developing services that: provide high quality treatment and standards of care; genuinely focus on prevention and promoting health and well-being; deliver care in more local settings; are flexible, integrated and responsive to people’s needs and wishes. Work with local people is helping to design better services, giving greater choice and enabling them to live healthy independent lives.
Achieving health for all is not just about healthcare. Work with local people and partners across all sectors is improving the conditions that enable everyone to live healthier lives, such as a smoke-free city and a built environment which supports active living. These and many other developments are outlined in a City Health Development Plan.
Issues of concern
- The health gap between rich and poor continues to grow.
- Agencies recognise that health depends upon a range of wider factors, including employment, housing, transport, crime, education, poverty and access to healthcare
- Air pollution limits are predicted to be exceeded in various locations across the city.
What has happened over the last three years
- partnership working between health trusts, the council and others;
- giving people information and support to make choices about their health; and
- tailoring health services to meet people's individual needs.
- A Health Inequalities Strategy has been developed.
Current position
- Those born today can expect to live on average 4 years longer than someone born here 20 years ago but a range of different problems still need to be overcome.
- Life expectancy in xx area (76.4 years), a deprived ward, is more than 4 years less than in Stanford ward (80.7 years), one of the more affluent wards.
- The City Development Plan and Action Plan target cross-sector action on the wider determinants of health.
- xx schools had achieved the silver award for healthy schools. However the award has been revised and is now a harder to achieve National Healthy School Standard, which many schools are working towards.
- Regular walks in green spaces reduce the risk of heart attacks and diabetes and promote longevity.
- An Air Quality Management Area has been created covering two main roads leading into the city.
What we plan to do
- Implement the Health Inequalities Strategy to support families, engage communities and people, prevent illness and address the causes of ill health
- Calculate life expectancy for 10 Neighbourhood Renewal areas and compare with rest of city
- Promote physical and emotional health at schools through the Healthy Schools Programme
- Explore innovative ways to improve health, for instance through the arts and urban environment, such as green gyms, creating greenways, providing safe routes for cycling and walking and working with local employers to improve workforce health
- Through the Local Development Framework apply the principles and approaches of healthy urban planning
- Reduce traffic movements in the Air Quality Management Area using a range of strategies as set out in the Local Transport Plan