Pillar 1: The wider determinants of health

The main cause of health inequality is social inequality, that is the variation across the population in income, employment, education, and access to health care. In England, health inequalities were already worsening before the COVID-19 pandemic. The report Health Equity in England: The Marmot Review 10 Years On (2020) showed that life expectancy in England had stalled and the impacts of austerity policies had damaged health and increased health inequalities. The 2021 report Build Back Fairer: The COVID-19 Marmot Review demonstrated that these inequalities had worsened the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic for those on the lowest incomes and would widen health inequalities in the longer term because of widening inequalities in key wider determinants of health.

Despite the deteriorating national and regional context, there is still scope for local areas to make a real difference. For example, in 2021, the Cheshire and Merseyside Champs Public Health Collaborative and the Population Health Board of the Integrated Care System commissioned the Institute of Health Equity (IHE), to support work to reduce health inequalities in Cheshire and Merseyside. The aim of the programme was to take action on the social (wider) determinants of health and to build back fairer from COVID-19. The final report, All together Fairer: health equity and the social determinants of health in Cheshire and Merseyside was launched in May 2022 and informed the All Together Fairer: Our Health and Care Partnership Plan 2024-2029. These provide added focus and priority to existing work on health inequalities in the sub-region and helped develop new momentum and recommendations for effective action in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Cheshire West is part of the Cheshire and Merseyside Marmot community and is fully committed to taking action on the recommendations outlined in the report.

One of the key themes in the All Together Fairer: Our Health and Care Partnership Plan is ‘pursuing health equity together’. A programme for improving health outcomes and addressing inequalities is being collaboratively implemented with a goal for the Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership member organisations to become Anchor Institutions by 2026. Through the Anchor Plan, the partnership aims to establish a consistent approach and set of targets to guide Anchor Institutions in reducing health inequalities effectively.

The development of the Integrated Care System (ICS) in Cheshire and Merseyside (see Pillar 4 below) with its nine Places (on Local Authority footprints) created a real opportunity to forge an action-based, accountable system which will generate greater health equity in the region based on partnerships with other sectors. The ICS is also supporting the reduction of health inequalities through the national Core20PLUS5 programme. Core20 refers to the most deprived 20% of the national population. PLUS refers to the population groups in Cheshire and Merseyside that experience poorer than average health access, experience and/or outcomes who may not be captured in the Core20 alone and would benefit from a tailored healthcare approach. For example, certain ethnic minority communities, rural communities, people experiencing drug or alcohol dependence, Gypsy, Roma Traveller Communities, people living with learning disabilities or neurodiversity. 5 refers to five key clinical areas of health inequalities for adults, children and young people:

Adults

• maternity
• severe mental illness
• chronic respiratory disease
• early cancer diagnosis
• hypertension case finding.

Children and Young People

• asthma
• diabetes
• epilepsy
• oral health
• mental health.

The Core20PLUS5 Programme is:

• developing a list of high impact actions in partnership with local systems which will provide a practical menu of options for engaging with the defined communities
• driven by quality improvement methodologies to ensure measurable and sustained improvement
• working closely with Local Authorities, communities, and the Community Sector in tackling health inequalities.

Cheshire West is focussing on two locally identified areas of health inequalities: those who are living in transient populations, and those living with a learning disability or neurodiversity.

This ambitious programme of work will run alongside wider efforts to reduce health inequalities. Local work on health inequalities is important. Whilst Cheshire West is generally thought of as an affluent borough, the overall picture masks stark gaps between areas of prosperity and deprivation. The median local household income is £35,100[1] per year but, 21.8% of local households have an annual income of less than £21,900 compared to 21.5% nationally. Some 26,731 local people live in neighbourhoods ranked in the most deprived 10 per cent in England and 10,796 local children lived in low-income families during 2022/23[2]. According to the latest data available, whilst female life expectancy in the borough continues to rise, for men it has started to fall. The inequality in both male and female life expectancy at birth has reduced. Male life expectancy across the borough varies by up to 9.8 years for men and 7.8 years for women.

To address inequalities, investment should be targeted to where need is greatest, an approach known as proportionate universalism. Long term investment in a life course approach can limit ill health and the accumulation of risk throughout life. Altering policies, environments, and social norms to reduce inequalities will benefit all our residents, as well as future generations. Therefore, this approach can provide high returns for health and contribute to social and economic development. A holistic approach to investment is required, focusing on preventing health risks and reducing their cumulative effect throughout life and across generations to mitigate the economic burden of health costs.

We will:

• agree which recommendations in the All Together Fairer Marmot Report are priorities for Cheshire West and include them in our action plan and outcomes monitoring framework
• increase community engagement to build trust, understand needs and incorporate lived experience into appropriate planning and service delivery, brokered by the Community Sector and Poverty Truth Advisory Board, with a focus on underrepresented groups including Romany Gypsy, Traveller and Boating communities, as well as those living with learning disabilities or neurodiversity. This includes better representation in our seven Community Partnerships (see Pillar 4: An integrated health and care system)
• build on the West Cheshire Anchor Network to maximise social value[3] opportunities and community wealth building in line with the All Together Fairer Health and Care Partnership Plan
• address food poverty via increased access to healthy, affordable, and culturally appropriate food – shifting from food banks/emergency provision to social supermarkets integrated with welfare advice and service signposting, rooted in dignity and fairness
• adopt a proportionate universalism approach, where universal policies and interventions are developed to be more intense where need is higher
• adopt Cheshire and Merseyside’s Marmot indicators into local organisations including NHS, Cheshire West and Chester Council, businesses, and the Community Sector
• work in partnership with the Integrated Care System to support the Core20PLUS5 programme locally. This will include focussing on our two locally identified areas of health inequalities: those who are living in transient populations, and people with a learning disability or neurodiversity
• integrate wider determinants of health in all policies and in all work commissioned. All Council and local NHS strategies and decisions to be assessed for wider determinants of health impacts
• ensure our local poverty and other strategies includes commitment to reducing digital exclusion
• work in partnership with local communities to assess digital exclusion priorities
• assess the budget for addressing the social determinants of health in the NHS and local authorities
• work with Community Sector to include their contributions to addressing the social determinants of health
• extend the anchor organisation approach within the NHS, and to all other stakeholders e.g., public services, academic institutions, police, fire and rescue etc
• implement and enforce a 15% social value weighting[4] mandatory in all NHS procurement.

Sources:

[1] Source: Equivalised Paycheck 2023. © 1996-2023 CACI Limited. This report shall be used solely for academic, personal and/or non-commercial purposes. The applicable copyright notices can be found at https://www.caci.co.uk/copyrightnotices.pdf

[2] Source: Children in low income families: local area statistics (before housing costs, relative low income), Department for Work & Pensions.

[3] Social value can be defined as the wider benefit gained by a local community from the delivery of public contracts. Social value can be split into three areas.

• Economic (e.g., employment or apprenticeship/training opportunities)
• Social (e.g., activities that promote cohesive communities such as volunteering or flexible working policies)
• Environmental (e.g., efforts in reducing carbon emissions)

[4] Procurement of public sector contracts are generally evaluated on price, quality, and social value. Social value weighting is the percentage of the overall score allocated to the social value element of the evaluation.