What does a healthy community mean to you?

Healthy communities are places where people are able to live healthy and active lives.

As an Integrated Care System (ICS), we are working to build healthier communities. We do this by helping to prevent avoidable illness and tackling the root causes of poor health to help reduce health inequalities in our communities.

Too many people are living with poor health. This impacts on the health and wellbeing of these individuals, their families, the wider community, as well as our health and care services. 

Our health is affected by a wide range of factors including our lifestyle choices and issues such as housing, poverty, education or work opportunities, and social exclusion. More ill health will be prevented and quality of life improved when health and care services can work better together to tackle the root causes of poor health.

Individuals also have a part to play in taking responsibility for reducing their risk of becoming unwell.

Prevention is about stopping poor health before it starts. Supporting our residents to live healthier lifestyles is key in helping us to deliver on the NHS Long Term Plan:

We support prevention and the development of healthy communities by:

• Providing access to stopping smoking services
• Supporting people to be more physically active
• Supporting people to access a range of mental health support services early on
• Providing access to Health Checks to identify health issues early on
• Working with partners across the ICS to support early identification of people who are at-risk of developing long-term health conditions through our ProtectNoW programme

In this section you’ll find information on a number of campaigns and areas of work that help to support the development of healthier communities across Norfolk and Waveney: