Integrating housing, health and care Last month Simon Stevens announced NHS England’s Healthy New Towns programme. The programme, which is supported by Public Health England, will work with 10 new housing developments to shape the health of communities, and to rethink how health and care services can be delivered.
It was clear from Stevens that it’s quite novel for the NHS to be involved in planning right from the start, deciding how these new sites develop and piloting creative solutions for the health and care challenges that society is facing, including obesity and dementia. And he was right – the NHS is usually late to the table and as a result health and care needs can be an afterthought in new housing developments.
The programme offers important opportunities to embed healthy living into everyday lives – one argument being that if we enable healthy living, thus preventing ill health, we’ll reduce the burden on the over-stretched NHS. Healthy New Towns is a sensible programme but it’s also a long-term one, and we might not be able to measure the benefits of this approach for a number of years. In the meantime, how else should we improve health and care through one of the most fundamental parts of our lives – our homes? The King's Fund
See also:
It was clear from Stevens that it’s quite novel for the NHS to be involved in planning right from the start, deciding how these new sites develop and piloting creative solutions for the health and care challenges that society is facing, including obesity and dementia. And he was right – the NHS is usually late to the table and as a result health and care needs can be an afterthought in new housing developments.
The programme offers important opportunities to embed healthy living into everyday lives – one argument being that if we enable healthy living, thus preventing ill health, we’ll reduce the burden on the over-stretched NHS. Healthy New Towns is a sensible programme but it’s also a long-term one, and we might not be able to measure the benefits of this approach for a number of years. In the meantime, how else should we improve health and care through one of the most fundamental parts of our lives – our homes? The King's Fund
See also:
- Housing, care and health infographics The King's Fund
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