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.
My home, my care, my way event
The 2024 'My home, My care, My way' conference is taking place in May 2024. Details can be found below.
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.
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".
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