Specialist Health Improvement Service Budget Reduction

Overview

Specialist Health Improvement Service Budget Reduction Overview

Outline of Proposal

Public Health and Communities Directorate funds services to improve the health and wellbeing of residents in the Borough. The Specialist Health Improvement Service, Living Well is delivered by the Big Life Group. The aim of Specialist Health Improvement Service is to:

• Improve the health and wellbeing of residents at a community level
• Provide behaviour change support to enable more people to adopt a healthy lifestyle
• Provide early help and prevention through opportunistic conversations with people who may have disengaged with formal services
• Apply a person-centred approach to address people’s wider issues e.g. employment, housing, finance, relationships
• Assist communities and groups to develop health and wellbeing initiatives themselves
• Train people to carry out health promotion and prevention work
• Develop health promoting places and promote the prevention of heart disease, stroke and cancers.

This proposal reduces the budget for the Specialist Health Improvement Service.

General Impact

This proposal will have an impact on service delivery. There will be some wider impact, particularly on health services, council services, leisure services, and primary care including GPs due to slower responses from this support service.

Impact on Service Users

The proposal will affect the staffing capacity of provision within the Specialist Health Improvement Service. This will likely mean a reduction in the number of people who can access behaviour change support.  A 22% reduction in capacity equates to 660 fewer people being seen in 2025/26 compared to 2023/24. It is also likely to mean an increase in waiting times to access support.

Support for residents to navigate complex health systems will reduce, there will be a reduction in opportunistic conversations with people who have disengaged with formal services, and connecting isolated people to people and activities will reduce.

Savings Total

£200K reduction to the current contract (22% reduction).