Joint Health and Wellbeing (JHWS) draft strategy 2026/30

Here's David Thomas, Chair of the Health and Wellbeing Board and Leader of Torbay Council, talking about the new draft Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy for Torbay.

Contents

• Introduction
• Torbay at a glance
• Our vision
• What makes a healthy neighbourhood?
• Our key challenges
• Activities to address needs
• Priorities
• Year 1 - priority action areas
  • Priority 1 – Healthy spaces (Children & young people)
  • Priority 2 – Healthy work: Working age adults
  • Priority 3 – Healthy ageing: Older adults
• References

Introduction

What is a Health & Wellbeing Strategy?

• A strategy to address the needs and inequalities of Torbay’s population and set out our strategic priorities for action.

Why do we need one?

• To improve health and wellbeing, and reduce inequalities, through working better together

Who is involved?

• All Health and Wellbeing Board partners, in consultation with our community

How does it improve health and wellbeing?

• By informing local commissioning
• Promoting integration between health & care, housing, economy, transport & environment

Health and Wellbeing Boards bring together local authorities, health and care organisations, police, voluntary sector, and other partners, with the aim of improving health and reducing inequalities. 

Every Health and Wellbeing Board is required to develop a Health and Wellbeing Strategy setting out the plan for improving the health and wellbeing of the local population.  These will be very relevant to the expectations in the NHS 10 Year Plan for the development of neighbourhood health. 

What could be more important than improving the health and wellbeing of our population? 

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Torbay at a glance

Key facts and differences across our population:

• Torbay is a coastal community with comparatively high levels of deprivation, and strong natural and human assets
• We have a significantly older age profile than England, with an average age of 49 compared with 40 nationally
• We have a much lower working age population than England and the South West
• 1 in 3 of our residents will be aged 65 and over by 2033
• There is 23 years difference in the median age between King’s Ash and Wellswood wards
• How long we live varies significantly between men and women, and between the different wards in Torbay
• Almost 1 in 4 of our residents have health conditions or disabilities that reduce their ability to carry out day-to-day activities.  Numbers are much higher in our more deprived wards

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Our vision

Healthy neighbourhoods where people of all ages can live, work and thrive.

• I am enabled to look after my health and wellbeing.
• I have a secure home, work and friends.
• My environment enhances my health and wellbeing.
• I know how to get help and support when I need it.

Citizens – are in charge of their health and wellbeing

• Are partners in their care
• Are seen in context

Housing, Employment, Education and Transport – are suitable and secure

• Promote health and wellbeing
• Promote independence
• Reduce inequalities

Natural and built environments – enhance health and wellbeing

• Promote physical activity and social connections

Health and Care services – go where people are

• Are easy to access
• Are enabling
• Are designed in partnership
• Start with prevention

What makes a healthy neighbourhood?

What does national policy and strategy say?

Under the Government’s ‘Plan for Change’ there are five national missions to deliver a decade of national renewal.  All five are relevant to our work as statutory and voluntary partners in Torbay, but there is particular resonance in the focus on economic growth, the NHS, and breaking down the barriers to opportunity through giving every child the best start in life. 

In order to build an NHS fit for the future, the 10 year Health Plan for England refocuses health around three key shifts:

• Hospital to community
• Analogue to digital
• Sickness to prevention

These are supported by the creation of a neighbourhood health service in which all care should be as local as it can be - in the home if possible - and digital by default. 

Healthy communities, or healthy places, are not new.  With an emphasis on prevention, healthy neighbourhoods are a function of all the determinants of health working together to influence individual and community wellbeing. 

Healthy communities are:

• Connected, with strong local networks and support systems
• Inclusive, especially for people with disabilities, older adults, and ethnically diverse communities
• Empowered, with access to information and the ability to shape services

We want to see:

• Better access to GPs and primary care
• Joined-up services across health, social care, and community support
• Equity in service provision, especially in coastal, rural, and deprived areas
• Digital inclusion:- technology should support—not replace—human care, and services must remain accessible to those without digital skills or internet access

We support moving care from hospitals into communities:

• Services closer to home – providing care that is community-based, accessible, personalised, and empowering
• Increased convenience, and earlier detection though community diagnostic centres and virtual wards

We want to see:

• Mental health support in schools
• Early intervention
• Listening to young people’s concerns
• More education around mental health and wellbeing
• Accessible community mental health services

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Our key challenges

Economy, housing and inequalities

• High levels of deprivation; relatively weak local economy and low wages.
• Cost of living pressures; fuel poverty; old and inefficient housing stock.
• Large variation in health and education outcomes across the bay.

Children and young people

• High rates of cared-for children
• Higher proportion of pupils with SEND; high rates of absenteeism post-pandemic.
• Poor oral health with high levels of dental extractions.

Working age adults

• Our working-age proportion is projected to fall to ~50% of the population over the next 20 years
• High rates of homelessness and housing insecurity.
• High levels of vulnerability, mental ill-health, self-harm and suicide.

Older adults

• We have a rapidly ageing population, with 1 in 3 Torbay residents expected to be over 65 by the mid 2030s. 
• High demand for Adult Social Care for both adults and older adults.
• Very high rates of unpaid carers, many providing more than 50 hours of care a week.

Healthy behaviours

• We have lower screening and immunisation uptake since the pandemic.
• Around 1 in 3 adults are obese. 1 in 4 reception age children, and more than 1 in 3 Year 6 children are overweight or obese.
• Around 1 in 6 adults smoke.
• We have high rates of alcohol-related admissions to hospital and deaths from preventable liver disease.

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Activities to address needs

Guidance for strategy and commissioning—responding to what people say they need.

Economy, housing and inequalities

• Take a poverty reduction approach in all policies
• Ensure there are the jobs, skills, homes & culture in the Bay that make it attractive to live and work here
• Start early – support the pipeline from education into employment
• Recognise the links between health & wealth; focus on the determinants of health & wellbeing (jobs, homes, education) as well as access to health & care
• In every intervention, consider the deprivation gradient – who has the poorest outcomes & the greatest need?  Target interventions proportionately to reduce inequalities

Children and young people

• Focus on prevention and enabling
• Take a graded approach – from universal to targeted support when needed
• Gather a team around the family to support healthy development for all our children
• Maintain the ‘early help’ approach, getting the right support, when & where it is needed
• Co-design interventions with those intended to benefit (eg people with SEND, those who are care experienced)
• Develop interventions that will break the cycle of disadvantage, poor health & wellbeing
• Improve access to good oral health; focus on prevention

Working age adults

• Strengthen employment opportunities & skills for all age groups
• Support & enable people who are out of work through ill-health back into employment
• Develop sufficient housing for people to live & work in the Bay
• Ensure health & care reach out into the community, going where people are
• Make it normal to talk about mental health; promote resilience & confidence around the ways to wellbeing; increase access to information & support; expand peer support & training

Older adults

• Take an enabling, ‘coaching’ approach, building on people’s strengths
• Think ‘home first’, enabling people to stay at home rather than go into hospital or long term care
• Focus on prevention; expand healthy ageing initiatives enabling people to build their physical, mental and social health & wellbeing
• Implement Age Friendly initiatives to promote healthy environments as we age, including housing, transport, planning, employment
• Support & enable carers to look after their own health & wellbeing

Protecting our health 

• Increase uptake of immunisation & screening through targeted promotion & easier access

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Priorities

Programme selection framework

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How will we know if we are having an impact?

Individual programmes will have their own outcome measures.  These will include national health indicators but also more short term local indicators agreed by partners.  These should reflect the principles of the Strategy, being real and meaningful for people the intervention is designed to benefit. 

How we developed this Strategy

This Strategy was developed in collaboration with members of the Torbay Health and Wellbeing Board with input from stakeholders including Local Authority, NHS, and Community and Voluntary Sector partners.

It was informed by insights from local community engagement and consultation with local residents.

It is based on the evidence of the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment for Torbay which sets out the health status of the population including the social and economic factors influencing our health.

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Year 1 priority action areas

Priority 1 – Healthy spaces (Children & young people)

Needs

Inequalities in opportunity; physical ill-health; low physical activity; poor diet; housing or school insecurity; educational underachievement; unreadiness for work.

Interventions

Activities to build physical, mental and social health and wellbeing; junior work placements; community research; support from education into work; coaching & mentoring; Child Friendly Torbay – play domain.

Partners

Community partnership, Play Torbay collaborative, Torbay Council; Health and Wellbeing Board partners, NHS, VCSE; co-designed with families and young people.

Priority 2 – Healthy work: Working age adults

Needs

Not working due to ill-health; not in education, employment or training; SEND, care-experienced and carers.

Interventions

Connect to Work programme supporting people into employment; support for long term health conditions, confidence building, mentoring, practical and social support.

Partners

Torbay Council and Local Care Partnership; employers; NHS; VCSE; co-designed with citizens.

Priority 3 – Healthy ageing: Older adults

Needs

Inequalities in life expectancy; early frailty onset; loneliness and social isolation; digital exclusion; carer health and wellbeing; housing insecurity; access to services and amenities.

Interventions

Age Friendly housing, transport and access to community support and health.

Partners

Torbay Citizens’ Assembly; Torbay Council; Health and Wellbeing Board partners; co-designed with older adults in Torbay.

References

• Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) & Ward Profiles
• 10 Year Health Plan for England – Fit for the future
• Plan for Change – GOV.UK
• The King’s Fund – Communities and Health
• Marmot Review – 10 Years On
• One Devon – NHS 10 Year Plan

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