Health Improvement Board

About the Health Improvement Board, part of the Health and Wellbeing Board.

Our aim

To add life to years and years to life, focusing on the factors underpinning wellbeing, while levelling up differences in the health of different groups in the county.

Who are we and what do we do?

The Health Improvement Board focuses on effective partnership working across Oxfordshire to meet peoples’ health and social care needs. It aims to:

Priorities for Health Improvement 2019-24

The Health Improvement Board is a sub-partnership of the Oxfordshire Health and Wellbeing Board. 

Health and Wellbeing Board Shared Vision: “To work together in supporting and maintaining excellent health and well-being for all the residents of Oxfordshire”

Objectives for the Health and Wellbeing Board

  • Living well and staying independent for longer

Prevention measures will allow us to live longer lives (prevent illness), live well for longer (reduce need for treatment) and keep us independent for longer (delay need for care).

  • Addressing inequalities including

    • Inequalities in outcome - by focussing on the people who have worse outcomes
    • Inequalities of access - by ensuring people know about the right services and can use them.

Health Improvement Board Priorities

It is proposed that the Health Improvement Board has 3 priorities which will align with the work of the other sub-groups of the Health and Wellbeing Board to deliver the Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy (2019-24)

Keeping yourself healthy (Prevent)

  • Reduce physical inactivity / promote physical activity

    • Promote activity in schools to make it a lifetime habit
    • Promote active travel for all ages
    • Provide excellent leisure services including access to green spaces and the countryside
  • Enable people to eat healthily
    • Starting with breastfeeding
    • Sugar Smart
    • Access to healthy food for all
  • Reduce smoking prevalence

    • In community groups with higher smoking rates
    • In pregnancy
  • Promote mental wellbeing

    • 5 ways to wellbeing / CLANGERS (Connect, Learn, be Active, Notice, Give, Eat healthily, Relax, Sleep)
    • Adopt the principles of the Mental Wellbeing Prevention Concordat
  • Tackle wider determinants of health

    • Housing and homelessness
    • Air quality
  • Immunisation

    • Routine childhood immunisations
    • Seasonal immunisations, such as influenza
    • Immunisations for vulnerable groups such as pregnant women (including whooping cough) or ‘at risk’ groups, such as pneumococcal

Reducing the impact of ill health (Reduce)

  • Prevent chronic disease though tackling obesity

    • Weight management initiatives
    • Diabetes prevention
  • Screening for early awareness of risk
    • NHS Health Checks
    • Cancer screening programmes (e.g. bowel, cervical, breast screening)
  • Alcohol advice and treatment
    • Identification and brief advice on harmful drinking
    • Alcohol liaison in hospitals
    • Alcohol treatment services
  • Community Safety impact on health outcomes
    • Domestic abuse

Shaping healthy places and communities

  • Healthy environment and housing development

    • Learn from the Healthy New Towns and influence policy
    • Ensure our roads and housing developments enable safe walking and cycling
    • Ensure spatial planning facilitates social interaction for all generations – giving opportunities for people to meet who might not do so otherwise
  • Social prescribing
    • Referral from Primary Care to non-medical schemes e.g. for physical activity, social networks, support groups
  • Making Every Contact Count
    • In NHS settings
    • In front line services run by local authorities e.g. libraries, Fire and Rescue, leisure centres
    • In local communities and through the voluntary sector
  • Campaigns and initiatives to inform the public
    • Through workplaces including the Workplace Wellbeing Network
    • The media, including social media, or community initiatives using local assets