NHS Midlands and the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) hosted the Midlands Health Inequalities Conference 2023 at The Studio in Birmingham on Wednesday 29 November.
Representatives from across all 11 Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) across the Midlands attended - including NHS, Local Authority and Voluntary Sector Partners- along with patient representatives with lived experience.
The Black Country Health and Housing Forum, which is led by whg and the NHS Black Country Integrated Care Board (ICB), was presented at the conference by the ICS’ Health and Housing Partnership Manager, Sureya Gulzar, who discussed the forum’s prevention focused partnership as part of the partnership workshop.
The Black Country Health and Housing Forum shared its innovative approach to providing greater health access to those most in need of preventative health interventions, highlighting the importance of community based best practice including whg’s Community Champions, Social Prescribing and Work4 models, which are being scaled across the Black Country. This is to help serve the unmet needs of communities across the region in partnership with place based housing associations, all led by whg.
The forum aims to influence and ensure the development of productive strategic and operational relationships between the Black Country ICS, the local place based Integrated Care Partnerships (ICPs) and the social housing sector to improve collaboration between health and housing, and successfully embedding social housing as a key strategic partner within the Black Country.
Reflecting on the conference, Taps Mtemachani, Director of Transformation and Partnerships, said: “We are really pleased to see the partnership between health and housing taking shape within the Black Country. The Black Country Health and Housing Forum is a great opportunity for partners to share learning and look at innovative ways of improving outcomes for our Black Country population. The ICB remains committed to supporting the continued development of this partnership as part of the overall development of our ICP.”
Fay Shanahan, whg’s Corporate Director of Operations and IT, said: “We are committed to building successful communities and sustaining tenancies. Health and being healthy is a key enabler to us achieving this, but we can’t do this on our own. This is why partnership working is so crucial.
“This forum is enabling us to collaborate and tackle health inequalities at root, increasing health equity for disadvantaged groups, such as social housing residents, with particular focus on the Core20Plus5 groups utilising existing models of good practice.”
Led by whg and Black Country ICB, the Health and Housing Forum also includes GreenSquareAccord, Bromford, Churches Housing Association of Dudley & District, Nehemiah Housing, Black Country Housing Group, Wolverhampton Homes, City of Wolverhampton Council, Sandwell Council and Dudley Council.
For further information please contact sureya.
