NEWS: Joint project to delve into preventative healthcare

As reported by The NHS Confederation, they team up with academic institutions and Newton for a research initiative aiming to understand and overcome barriers to developing large-scale preventative health and care systems, seeking input from health leaders at various levels

The NHS Confederation, University of Stirling, University of Southampton and Newton have launched a research project to understand the barriers to unlocking at-scale preventative health and care within integrated care systems (ICSs).

The project takes forward recommendations made by the Hewitt review to prioritise ill health prevention as a key driver for improvements in population health outcomes. The NHS Confederation is well placed to help support local systems to unlock examples of good prevention practice and facilitate scalable learning and improvement within systems, a key priority for our members.

The research will map prevention work being undertaken at system, place and neighbourhood levels and the barriers that exist to collaborative prevention. The research team, professors Paul Cairney (University of Stirling) and John Boswell (University of Southampton), will conduct focus groups with system, place and neighbourhood leaders involved in prevention work locally.

Drawing on the research undertaken by the academics and the insight and expertise of Newton, we will publish a report and a toolkit with practical examples and guidance on how local health and care leaders can overcome barriers to shifting focus and resource towards preventing ill health.

Discussing the project, Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said:

“Integrated care systems will play a key role in shifting resources towards preventing ill health and reducing avoidable exacerbation to support communities to live long and healthy lives. I encourage health and care leaders at system, place and neighbourhood levels working on preventing ill health to seize the opportunity to participate in this important project, which will support them to adopt best practice and crucially shift to upstream preventions and interventions.”

Professor Paul Cairney (University of Stirling) and professor John Boswell (University of Southampton), said:

“We are very pleased to be undertaking this work with the NHS Confederation. We have both long been interested in the political challenges associated with good faith efforts to make public policy more preventive and more collaborative. We look forward to working with system leaders to get a better sense of how the new arrangements for integrated care are impacting the prevention agenda in practice, and what practical steps can be taken to push forward the agenda locally.”