Communities for Health was launched on a pilot basis in the spring of 2005, shortly after the publication of the Choosing Health White Paper. Bury is participating in the wider roll out of the programme to all the health inequalities Spearhead areas.
The £150,000 funding is one of the ways the DH is seeking to support Spearhead areas in meeting the considerable challenges we face in tackling health inequalities. It recognises the role that councils are playing in co-delivering the shared priority on health improvement and health inequalities. The funding is non recurrent because the purpose is to help us develop the capacity of our local health partnership, and in particular to strengthen the role that community groups and the voluntary sector can make in changing behaviours that have an adverse impact on health.
The funding has been utilised to deliver the following projects:
- Expanding the Community Volunteer Health trainers project (pdf). To include the three identified ‘communities. This project is being delivered by the PCT (Primary Care Trust).
- Post funding of Bury Health Kick (pdf) which aims to tackle male health issues using football;
- Consultation around barriers to accessing health services for some of our most deprived communities;
- Providing a directory of available services and advice to help combat some of the major health issues in the borough.
Strategic aims
The strategic aims of Communities for Health are to:
- engage communities in their own health and develop their capacity to support individual behavioural change for healthier lifestyles;
- build partnerships between organisations and communities; and
- develop innovative practices for community based health improvement.
Bury's Communities for Health strategy for 2007 - 2009 (pdf).
The aim of the Communities for Health programme is to pilot new public health approaches to unlocking the energy that lies within communities themselves. It can be used to:
- identify local projects that engage communities in improving their own health and help to reduce health inequalities;
- foster and enable the implementation of innovative, sustainable practice across a number of different priorities;
- encourage partnership working between different sectors, agencies and communities;
- strengthen the role of regional partners;
- promote and disseminate good practice; and
- reinforce the community leadership role of local authorities and the NHS.
Communities for Health - Learning from the Pilots (757kb 92 page pdf).
