In a new report recently published, national think tank – the King’s Fund has praised Greater Manchester for its work on population health and the improvements it’s made to health outcomes. Calling Greater Manchester “the poster child for devolution” in England, it recognises the time, effort and resources put in place across our city-region to help people to live good lives, improve wellbeing and prevent illness.
The report identifies key learning from GMs journey for others, including the importance of a strong and a shared vison, committed and distributed leadership and long-term unshakeable commitment over time. Investing in capability and an openness to scrutiny, learning and challenge support this.
The report reiterates the key role of population health as a core goal of integrated care systems, but recognises that ICSs across the country have lost capability and bandwidth due to funding cuts, diverting efforts away from fulfilling their founding principles. The new government has an opportunity to reset this, through creating better conditions for ICSs and through ensuring that population health approaches underpin its approach to its health mission and connect with its wider approach to devolution in England.
Whilst this new publication recognises the financial challenges that the NHS and other public sector organisations face, it makes the case for continuing with a population health approach and the strong evidence that improvements in health can have for the economy at large.
Read the report here