How we identified priorities for the health and wellbeing strategy

Complete the Health and wellbeing strategy consultation questionnaire

Our health and wellbeing is shaped by a wide range of factors. For example, our education and employment opportunities; our housing; our social networks and where we live, all determine the choices we make to keep healthy.

Creating a healthy society requires action across all of these things, but we know that there are some areas where Herefordshire does not do as well.

In thinking about what priorities we should include in our new strategy, we have looked at local data and previous engagement exercises with the public.

Using this information we have used the following criteria to help identify areas that the new strategy could focus on:

  1. Herefordshire outcomes or indicators that are poor and/or worsening
  2. Issues that affect a large number of people or groups of people
  3. Issues that require partnership working between different organisations
  4. Issues that can be changed with a good understanding on what we can do to make a difference
  5. Issues with evidence showing that we can improve differences in health between different people

We recognise that all of the priorities we have identified are important, but we want to know which priorities the Health and Wellbeing Board should focus more of its time and effort on, and consider how we use funding to support those priorities.

It’s also important to state that if a particular issue has not been identified as a priority, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t work being done on it. There are many requirements from central government that we and our partners have to meet in regards to health and social care. But the priorities that we set for our Health and Wellbeing strategy are determined by the local needs and are those that we will aim to give a particular focus to over a set time period.