Our communities create good health in many ways, from everyday acts of neighbourliness to collaboration between services and communities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, action by communities and longstanding relationships with local organisations made a difference to health outcomes for communities across the city.
They are now central to our city’s resilience and response to future challenges.
There is a lot that we should feel proud of as a city. But there are also opportunities for improvement, learning and better embedding of good practice throughout the system. The importance of trust was a thread throughout this report, and models including volunteer and peer roles play an important role to reach all communities and reduce health inequalities. The lack of intelligence and insight on groups facing extreme health inequalities hinders tailored, appropriate and effective approaches to address these inequalities.
The health challenges and inequalities faced by communities in Leeds cannot be solved by services alone. Community-centred approaches offer an effective, equitable way to improve health and wellbeing and reduce inequalities. They are not an alternative to clinical services; they are an important complement to ensure we reach all communities. They make a difference to health behaviours, access to services and better and fairer health outcomes - particularly for those communities experiencing the greatest disadvantage.
Key messages
These are our priorities to strengthen community-centred approaches for health. We believe these will help shape better and fairer health outcomes across the city.
Start with communities
- Start with the strengths, assets and needs of the community and build from there. Tailor approaches, think holistically about people and meet them where they are.
Central to all our work
- Community-centred approaches are not a single project or intervention. They are woven through all our work to improve health and address inequalities.
Recognised and valued
- Protect community-centred approaches as an effective, fair approach. Learn from projects that make a difference and scale them up to increase impact.
Long-term investment
- Building trust and community capacity takes time. It requires sustainable approaches and investment to build lasting impact, rather than one-off, short-term funding.
Trust is key
- Trusted relationships with communities and VCFS organisations are essential. They are part of our health and wellbeing infrastructure and are critical to our preparedness for future health emergencies.
Meaningful collaboration
- Engaging with communities in a meaningful way means sharing decision-making and trusting communities. Community priorities may not always align with our priorities, but working in this way helps to build trust and deliver outcomes.
Prioritise communities facing extreme health inequalities
- Effective engagement with communities and improved data collection and analysis are needed to develop tailored, effective approaches.
Recommendations
We have developed 8 recommendations to build on strong foundations in Leeds to and have an impact on better and fairer health outcomes. The recommendations are relevant for work from birth through to older age and require a joined-up approach across public health and other parts of LCC, NHS organisations, VCFS and academic partners.
- Leeds City Council and academic partners to develop a simple guide to support assessment and improvement of community-centred approaches to improve health across the city.
- Leeds Health Protection Board to ensure community centred approaches are central to outbreak and pandemic planning, drawing on local experience and learning. This includes adopting sustainable approaches to community champions for long term impact.
- Leeds City Council and NHS organisations should aim for sustainable, long-term contracts and approaches with the VCFS in recognition of their critical role in delivering community-centred approaches to improve health.
- Leeds City Council, NHS organisations and VCFS to scale up community-centred approaches that work through all parts of the system, in line with Marmot principles. This includes new programmes such as Neighbourhood Health.
- Leeds City Council, NHS organisations and VCFS to explore opportunities to strengthen peer and volunteer roles as a practical approach to build trust and address health inequalities.
- Leeds City Council and NHS organisations, in partnership with VCFS, to ensure people facing extreme health inequalities are included as a priority through all parts of the system. This includes new programmes such as neighbourhood health.
- Leeds City Council Public Health Intelligence, NHS organisations and VCFS to identify and implement opportunities to improve intelligence, insight, analysis and reporting on groups facing extreme health inequalities. This is to provide robust reporting of health inequalities and the impact of work to reduce them.
- Local academic sector to strengthen local research and evaluation to inform programmes and services to improve health and wellbeing and reduce inequalities.
This includes understanding communities’ strengths and needs, learning from community-centred approaches, and involving communities in research.
