Greater Manchester lauded for approach to population health

The King’s Fund has praised Greater Manchester for its work improving key measures of health and health inequalities. The influential national charity has called Greater Manchester “the poster child for devolution” in England and has recognised the time, effort and resources put in place helping people to live good lives, improve wellbeing and prevent illness.

The new report, published this week, shows how health is influenced by wider determinants such as high‑quality and secure housing, a good job and a healthy environment. It highlights the vital link between health, and the communities we live in as well as the value in aligning strategies to ensure improvement of both the economic and health status of the population.

Since 2015, Greater Manchester has had a wide-ranging devolution deal with Government on health which has led to improvements in life expectancy and other measures (see here for information). Greater Manchester’s model was integral to the creation of statutory integrated care systems in 2022 with improving outcomes in population health and health care a key aim.

The King’s Fund report reiterates the importance of population health being a core goal of integrated care systems and the value in different government departments below the national level working more closely together, including at mayoral level. It underpins Greater Manchester’s ‘live well model’ that aims to transform the relationship between work and health.

While this new publication recognises the financial challenges that the NHS and other public sector organisations face, it makes the case for continuing with a population health approach and the strong evidence that improvements in health can have for the economy at large.

Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester and NHS Greater Manchester Integrated Care Partnership co-chair, said: “Greater Manchester’s health devolution journey has a simple but fundamental principle at its heart: that more local decision-making can deliver better outcomes for people.

“This report from the King’s Fund sets out clearly the wider social factors that impact people’s health and wellbeing, but also the power of devolution to draw the connections between those issues and tackle them systematically.

“That is the strength of our devolved approach, and the mission of the new Live Well service that we want to pioneer here in our city-region. There are still challenges and pressures that we face. But we’ve made progress already, including on healthy life expectancy, and by bringing together partners and joining up the support offer for residents – whether that’s health and social prescribing, housing advice, or employment support – we can deliver better, more efficient public services, and improve people’s life chances.”

Jane Pilkington, Director of Population Health for NHS Greater Manchester Integrated Care said: “The King’s Fund spotlighting Greater Manchester as leading the way in population health is pivotal to re-emphasise the important role the NHS plays in improving the health and wellbeing of residents, by focusing on preventing ill-health in the first instance rather than just treating sickness, as well as relentlessly working to reduce health inequalities.

In Greater Manchester we need to continue to work together with communities and the voluntary sector, local government, and the NHS to help create a place where everyone can live a good life, growing up, getting on and growing old in a greener, fairer more prosperous city-region – focusing on improving both the health and economic circumstances of our residents.”