NHS Prevention Pledge
Despite dramatic improvements over the last 20 years, Cheshire and Merseyside continues to experience widespread preventable illness and inequalities in health.
It is widely acknowledged that a renewed focus on prevention measures is needed at scale to help address the gaps identified by the NHS Five Year Forward View, the NHS Long Term Plan, and the NHS Phase 3 COVID response.
To assist NHS Trusts in Cheshire and Merseyside to strengthen and scale up population-level prevention priorities, NHS Cheshire and Merseyside’s Population Health Board has worked with public health charity Health Equalities Group to develop an NHS Prevention Pledge for Trusts in Cheshire and Merseyside.
The NHS Prevention Pledge is underpinned by 14 ‘core commitments’ that have been developed through extensive consultation with representatives from provider trusts, NHS England, local authority public health teams, Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, and third sector organisations across the region.
The core commitments cover the following key themes:
- Promoting workforce development, quality improvement, workplace health & wellbeing
- Embedding brief advice and making every contact count (MECC) across all services
- Promoting healthier lifestyles for patients & visitors, including:
- healthier catering
- smoke-free environments
- active environments
- Enhancing anchor institution practices, engaging with the anchor framework & sign up to the C&M Social Value Charter and the C&M Social Value Award
- Using Marmot principles to address health inequalities
- Signing up to the C&M Concordat for Better Mental Health
- Embedding prevention within governance structures
