We know better housing is crucial for the mental and physical health of our communities.
In the North East and North Cumbria we have established a Housing, Health, and Care Programme to build on the collaborative work already underway across our region to tackle and mobilise on this important issue.
Our programme is the region's sector led improvement initiative focused on delivering better, more integrated housing, care, and support so that people can be healthy, live well, and stay independent in their own home.
The programme has been co-created by the North East branch of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS), the NHS North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board, the Northern Housing Consortium, and the TEC Services Association (TSA); with many other partners involved too.
Community of practice
A new 'community of practice' – an open forum for knowledge-sharing and collaboration – will support the programme, bringing together council, NHS, housing providers and people with lived experience to learn from each other.
To sign up please email - sean.cocking@nhs.net using the subject "Community Housing Programme".
Our five-year roadmap
Our programme has teamed up with the Housing Learning and Improvement Network (LIN) to develop a baseline review of housing needs in the region. This review, alongside rich insights and feedback from events, roundtables and our community of practice, has shaped our priorities for the next five-years.
Our priorities
We are focused on three important areas of work:
These areas of work were co-produced with colleagues and people with lived experience from across the region following our first event in 2023.
My home, my care, my way event
On 8 May 2024 we hosted the 'My home, My care, My way' conference. Watch our video to learn more about this event.
Further details and outputs on this event can be found below.
Hear from our partners
The link between housing and health
Jacqueline Myers, chief strategy officer for the North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB) speaks about the critical connections between housing conditions and health outcomes, exploring the activities being planned by the programme which is a partnership between the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS), the Northern Housing Consortium, the TEC Services Association (TSA) and the North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board.
What we aim to achieve
By working together we want to see
- Fewer homes in the social and private sector that have category 1 hazards
- Fewer homes that are categorised as non-decent and more homes that are categorized as meeting the Decent Homes Standard.
- Fewer people in hospital when they don't need to be because they are supported at home to live well and independently
- Improvements in people’s experience of housing, health, and care services
- More joined-up working across health, housing, care and VCSE sector
- More supported housing options, in the places where they’re needed.
Creating better homes for our community
Creating better homes for our community and linking together across different sectors and organisations is a key focus in many of our plans in the region. These include:
- Better health and wellbeing for all an Integrated Care Strategy for the North East and North Cumbria which sets out a ten-year plan, agreed by all partners across the region, to ensure longer and healthier lives for all
- People at the health of care which is a 10 year vision for adult social care
- Health strands of North East Housing Partnership which is collaboration of social housing providers, local authorities and arms-length management organisations
- The NHS Integrated Care Board’s Joint Forward Plan which sets how the NHS will deliver, with partners, the Better health and wellbeing for all strategy which includes working to improve housing for people living in our most deprived communities