At a special meeting of the Hampshire 2050 Partnership held at Hampshire County Council in Winchester, local authorities, health services, the education sector, other public organisations and business, supported by England’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Dr Jeanelle de Gruchy, gathered to launch a ‘Year of Health and Wellbeing’.
It marks the start of a 12-month focus by the partners on the development of activity, both within their own organisations and collectively, aimed at securing long-term improvements in people’s physical and mental wellbeing across the county.
Commenting on the initiative, Dr de Gruchy, who is also the Professional Lead at the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, said: “I think the Partnership’s Year of Health and Wellbeing initiative is fantastic. I have not seen an approach quite like this in any of my travels around the country. This will help direct efforts on what are some of the really big challenges that Hampshire faces and enables partners to collectively ask what they can do about the lack of physical activity, increasing obesity levels and poor mental health among Hampshire’s population.”
Leader of Hampshire County Council, Councillor Nick Adams-King added: “We know that good health is vital for a high quality of life, mental wellbeing and, for many, financial security as we’ll be working for longer than the generation before us. However, the task of improving health and wellbeing is everyone’s business - it cannot just fall to health and social care organisations. As partners, we are all committed to delivering the best for the people of Hampshire and the benefits to all from a healthy and well population are so important.
“I am sure there is much that we can do together and individually, from the way we run our organisations and integrate health and wellbeing into the way we do business, to how we support our staff. I have no doubt that we all want each other, our families, friends and colleagues, to be as healthy as possible so that we can able live active and fulfilling lives.”
Hampshire and Isle of Wight Director of Public Health, Simon Bryant, said: “Health and wellbeing is an incredibly critical issue. We know that more people are living longer but they are doing so in poor health, and we need to tackle this so that we improve people’s quality of life, help people to live longer, enable much better use of our health services, and help encourage a thriving local economy. Improving health and wellbeing is a long-term goal and this is an exciting start - our aspiration is that it will reap rewards for years beyond the next 12 months.”
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The ‘Year of Health and Wellbeing’ was launched on Monday 9 September and follows the Hampshire 2050 Partnership summit held in November 2023, where a Hampshire 2050 Partnership Roadmap for 2024-25 was drawn up to realise the Hampshire 2050 Vision - a blueprint developed to guide and contribute to the future prosperity and quality of life of Hampshire’s residents, while also protecting the environment and tackling climate change.
To achieve the Vision, partners agreed to focus on a single, critical theme each year and for 2024 – 2025, the Partnership voted ‘health and wellbeing’ the number one priority.