Healthy communities

Welcome to the healthy communities web resource. This website explores health improvement at local government level and also includes a wealth of information on tackling health inequalities. On these pages you will find information about healthy communities and the healthy communities programme, good practice examples, news and events, government policy legislation and guidance and much more.

In 2005 for the first time the Government outlined local government’s responsibility for co-delivering a plan to improve the health of local people and reduce the health inequalities gap. That delivery plan was the public health white paper Choosing Health.

It is widely accepted across government maintaining improvement in the nation’s health can be achieved more cost-effectively through councils. Council initiatives may be more beneficial than the health service trying to fix harm done to someone’s health after years of self-neglect.

Social and economic factors are wider determinants of health. And health is a wider determinant of the progress local government can make in advancing the social and economic wellbeing of people living in their areas.

A lot has happened thus far to raise the profile of the health improvement agenda in local government; and local authorities now have the opportunity to develop the skills and leadership necessary to deliver longer and healthier lives for everyone.