The Healthy Communities programme

The Healthy Communities programme brings together a wide range of programmes and activities with one clear aim – to help local government improve the health of their local communities.  

We are part of the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) and are funded by the Department of Health (DH). The IDeA is a member of the Local Government Association (LGA) Group. We work closely with local government and local health bodies as well as national partners.  

Local government is a key player in the fight to improve the health of local people and tackle health inequalities. It is working with other local partners to agree health needs and priorities for the future.

There is a growing appreciation of the vital role of local government in health improvement. Local authorities have a unique ability to reach into their community: most of the services they provide have an impact on the health of that community.   

Local government has shown a growing confidence and capability to lead on this issue in the last three years of the programme. One sign of this has been the number of local councils that have chosen to focus on health improvement as part of their local area agreements (LAAs).

We are at an exciting point in our programme: able to look back and appreciate the progress made in the last three years, but also to look to the future. Our funding has been extended until 2011 and, in response, we are extending our support into some interesting new areas. The full range of our work is explained on this page and subsequent pages under the category heading ‘The Healthy Communities programme'. These pages will be updated as our newer offers develop.

If there is anything about our work that you would like to discuss please contact:

Contact

email: Mariam.Manneh@idea.gov.uk
email: Lorna.Shaw@idea.gov.uk

Page published December 2009.