Cumberland Joint Local Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2023 to 2028

Why is it so important

Cumberland is a large sparsely populated area made up of a number of towns and villages (many ex-industrial), along the

Cumbrian coast, part of a National Park, open expanses of countryside and the City of Carlisle.  The geographical diversity exemplifies health inequalities across Cumberland with life expectancy differing markedly depending on where you live.

The lower population density in more remote areas also masks small pockets of significant deprivation and poor health outcomes.

Action is required at a broader social, environmental and economic level around the wider determinants of health and wellbeing. This is about creating the conditions in which individuals can reasonably be expected to be healthy and to take action in support of their own health and wellbeing. 

The factors that impact on people’s health and wellbeing go beyond their ability to access health and care services. A community is healthy and sustainable when it has:

• Natural assets: A high quality natural environment that provides opportunities for engagement with the natural world. This includes taking action on the climate crisis and promoting use of green spaces
• Human assets: People with the skills, knowledge and experience that give them the capacity to take part in society and have meaningful and fulfilling lives
• Social assets: A good social infrastructure, with networks and institutions that allow people to connect to each other
• Physical assets: a good physical infrastructure including housing, transport and a commercial environment that promotes healthy behaviours
• Financial assets: adequate financial resources that are fairly distributed, underpinned by well-paid and secure employment

A key feature of this framework is that it emphasises the importance of building all five types of community asset without degrading any of them. It sets a positive vision of building a better society in which everyone is able to maximise their potential for health and wellbeing. Whilst all of these areas are important there is a recognition that the climate and environmental emergency we face will have significant impacts on health and wellbeing and is likely to affect the least well off disproportionately.  As with other areas under this theme there are close linkages between this strategy and other strategies (such as the Council’s developing Climate Strategy) in tackling the wider determinants of health.

Priority areas

• Working to reduce inequalities by tackling poverty and income inequalities
• Improving educational attainment for all young people across Cumberland
• Ensuring the availability of good quality housing that meets the needs of Cumberland’s people throughout their lives
• Developing healthy and sustainable places and communities, including sustainable food systems, addressing access and transport issues, and taking action on the climate crisis 
• Improving innovation and research in relation to the wider determinants of health

What sort of things are we going to do?

• Increase access and provision of early years services in areas with higher levels of deprivation
• Develop a strategic action plan to address poverty including actions to reduce digital exclusion
• Work with training providers and employers to improve employment options and opportunities
• Explore the potential to extend free school meal provision to pupils living in households experiencing food poverty 
• Provide holiday food initiatives for children from low income families
• Develop a Cumberland food partnership to help ensure locally available good quality food
• Adopt a health in all policies approach to ensure that health and wellbeing and health inequalities are considered in local economic, regeneration and spatial plans 
• Develop the role of HWBB partner organisations as Anchor institutions
• Work to improve the quality of private rented sector housing and increase decent homes standards
• Increase the provision of extra care housing 
• Tackle fuel poverty issues through design standards/building control and affordable warmth/retrofit programmes
• Targeted work to improve air quality in Air Quality Management Areas
• Initiatives to promote and adopt low/no carbon modes of transport such as making it easy for people to walk and cycle
• Initiatives to address limitations in access to services in remote and rural communities including improving digital inclusion and looking at alternative community transport services.
• Secure funding to develop research partnerships
• Use data in innovative ways to identify service gaps.

How are we going to measure progress?

• Proportion of low income households
• Gap in life expectancy between our most and least deprived communities 
• The number of young people achieving level four qualifications
• Proportion of houses built which are deemed to be affordable
• Proportion of social and private housing in poor condition
• Proportion of homes in fuel poverty
• Excess winter deaths
• School readiness