Pillar 3 - partnership working on wider determinants of health

Embedding a System-Wide Approach to Prevention and Healthy Living

We collaborate with partners to maximise opportunities for promoting healthy behaviours in our communities and to embedding prevention in healthcare and clinical pathways. This includes advising patients on healthy behaviours and signposting them to support for health, bringing system partners together and improving healthcare staff's skills in providing brief advice on health and prevention. 

This workstream focuses on several key areas, including: 

• Supporting healthy behaviours and implementing Long Term Plan prevention initiatives, such as tobacco dependency, as well as a coordinated response to obesity.
• Addressing inequalities in cross-system prevention initiatives, including immunisation and vaccination, oral health, and cancer screening. This involves aligning public health and NHS services and rethinking delivery methods to encourage uptake and improve population health
• Developing a standardised prevention approach across the system, scaling up high impact interventions and ensuring we maximise opportunities to act early to improve population health and reduce health inequalities

Leading a Whole-System Response to Address the Wider Determinants of Health recognizes that health outcomes are shaped far beyond clinical care, by factors such as housing, employment, education, environment, and social inclusion.

This approach brings together partners across local government, the NHS, voluntary and community sectors, and employers to align strategies and coordinate positive action. By shifting from reactive treatment to prevention and early intervention, it aims to reduce health inequalities, improve population wellbeing, and support more sustainable public services.

This initiative focuses on several key areas, including:

• Creating employment opportunities for deprived communities and assisting individuals with health needs in finding work through initiatives such as internships, interview schemes, apprenticeships, and job fairs
• Addressing the rising cost of living by co-locating social welfare advice within NHS services
• Prioritising healthier homes by reducing issues such as damp and mould, thereby preventing hospital admissions linked to unsuitable housing
• Integrating social value into NHS procurement and utilising NHS assets for community benefit, including meeting spaces and warm hubs.
• Delivering innovative projects to support marginalised communities such as counselling services for asylum seekers living in contingency hotels and co-design of materials and resources for SEND residents

Building and developing meaningful partnerships with the VCSE sector underpinning the infrastructure to support all the different workstreams. Partnership with VCSE organisations is vital for the NHS because these groups are deeply embedded within the communities they serve, often reaching people and populations that statutory services struggle to engage. VCSE organisations bring trusted relationships, cultural competence, and flexibility, enabling more personalised and preventative approaches to care.

Working in partnership with the VCSE sector strengthens system resilience and effectiveness and can support co-design and delivery of services that are more responsive to local needs, support early intervention, and reduce pressure on acute services by helping people stay well for longer.

This initiative focuses on several key areas, including:

• Empower the third sector to be effective partners within the Integrated Care System (ICS) by collaborating with grassroots organisations. It focuses on creating infrastructure that ensures voluntary and community sector (VCS) organisations contribute to and support health and care delivery across North West London, including the development of contracting and impact frameworks for smaller organisations.

Creating effective partnerships among our Anchor institutions through an Anchor Charter. This provides a shared framework for aligning the economic, social, and environmental impact of large, place-based organisations such as NHS trusts, local authorities, universities, and housing providers. By committing to a common set of principles, anchors can coordinate their influence as major employers, purchasers, and civic leaders to drive inclusive local growth, reduce inequalities, and improve population health. 

This initiative focuses on several key areas, including:

• Ensuring anchor organisations are paying the London living wage and are accredited with the London living wage Foundation
• Supporting greater access to good quality employment by pledging to consider pre-selected candidate for guaranteed interviews (from both CORE20PLUS Backgrounds and from local pre-work programs)
• Trusts will monitor and increase the amount of apprenticeship levy spent on people from local CORE20  populations,  and pledge that unused apprenticeship will be gifted to VCSE organisations  in NWL who have plans to spend it
• Developing  NWL  policies for identifying new suppliers, particularly Local businesses that are owned by or employ CORE20PLUS local people, and working with them to support them to supply the NHS and local public sector
• Support community groups through the paid use of community venues for NHS partnership meetings where possible, and to increase their community benefit derived from NHS buildings (e.g. offering space for community meetings or as warm hubs)