Healthy Lives, Healthy People - East Sussex County Council

East Sussex Health and Wellbeing Strategy ConsultationWhere we want to beOur visionOur vision is to protect and improve health andwellbeing and reduce health inequalities in EastSussex so that everyone has the opportunity to havea healthy, safe and fulfilling life.This is part of a broader partnership vision set outin the East Sussex Sustainable Community Strategy,Pride of Place, to create and sustain:• A vibrant, diverse and sustainable economy;• Great places to live in, visit and enjoy; and• Safe, healthy and fulfilling livesA whole life approachWe will consider health and wellbeing fromconception to death and take into account widerfactors that can affect people’s health and wellbeing,for example the importance of a decent place to live,employment and leisure activities. Although eachlife stage deserves particular attention, a whole lifeapproach enables links to be made along the lifecourse. By taking this approach we want to ensurethat, in East Sussex:• Every child has a good start in life: a safe,healthy and happy childhood provides thefoundation for every child to thrive and achievetheir potential.• Children and young people develop well:the physical health and mental wellbeing ofchildren and young people coupled with goodeducational achievement are essential to a goodquality of life and good chances in adulthood.• Adults live healthy lives and have healthierlifestyles: alongside other factors such as poorhousing and unemployment, unhealthy lifestylescan lead to a range of physical and mentalhealth problems later in life and, in some cases,a lower life expectancy.• Workplaces promote health and wellbeing:unemployment can affect people’s health,healthy employees are more productive andworkplaces can be used to promote healthierlifestyle choices.• Older people live healthy and independentlives: as people live longer it is essential thatolder people have a good level of health andwellbeing to enable them to live fulfilling andindependent lives.• High quality and choice of care at the end oflife: everyone diagnosed with a terminal illnessdeserves equal access to the highest quality endof life care and to die in their preferred place ofdeath.An integrated, whole systemapproachWe want to build on the work already taking placeto close the traditional divide between health,social care and other services that affect people’shealth and wellbeing so that individuals get ‘joinedup’ services that address their needs. This involvesbringing together and joining up every aspect ofdesigning, commissioning and delivering preventionand early intervention, diagnosis, treatment, care,re-ablement, rehabilitation and health improvementand promotion services to ensure people get theright support, in the right place, at the right time.A ‘whole system’ is not just about getting differentorganisations working together – this alreadyhappens in East Sussex – it is also about gatheringand sharing local information and knowledge tounderstand the impact that changes in one part ofthe system have on everything else, for example theimpact of increasing, or reducing, early interventionand prevention on the number of hospitaladmissions and how one health and wellbeingissue might impact on another, for example, alcoholmisuse and chronic health conditions.8