Healthy Place Shaping Resources

Questions that might help us diagnose whether we are working to Protect the NHS from being overwhelmed include:

• Does your work address anyone of the diverse range of day-to-day social, economic and environmental factors which may impact on people's ability to live healthier and happier lives (the wider-determinants of health)
• How might it impact on people's ability to make healthier choices such as better diet, increased physical activity, or quitting smoking?
• Or are you supporting people to prevent, reduce or delay the onset of ill-health? (particularly towards non-communicable diseases i.e. heart disease, cancer and chronic respiratory disease)

To diagnose if you are incorporating the principles of Build Back Fairer into your work you might ask:

• How does this take action to reduce inequalities, and their impact?
• How does this make it easier for all to make healthier choices by addressing the barriers created by social and economic inequalities that result in large inequalities in health?
• How does this ensure that all can benefit from its impact by removing barriers to access for those facing inequalities?
• How does this observe and act on any unintended consequences of our actions?

To diagnose if you are taking a Healthy Place Shaping approach and building on what's strong you might ask:

• Is this creating an environment for positive change by identifying [with the community] strengths that can be built upon, rather than issues that must be fixed?
• Is this encouraging open discussion to make the most of existing those strengths [assets]; be they physical and social, collective and individual to co-create innovative solutions?

To diagnose if your Healthy Place Shaping approach is thinking local, you might ask:

• Is it working with, or supporting the community to build on its own local strengths?
• Does it empower local communities to take ownership of what's happening in their local area?
• How does it identify and adapt to local circumstance?
• Does it engage communities as partners in the process, including consultation and involvement in every step of the process, from priority-setting through to implementation, learning, and next steps?

To diagnose if your Healthy Place Shaping approach is connecting everything, you might ask:

• Does this approach recognise the wide range of barriers and influences on an individual's choices and behaviour?
• Does this approach connect with other individuals/communities/organisations and/or policy/interventions from across the system of influences and barriers.
• Does this approach cross boundaries between professional practices and approaches and embracing a shared understanding of the potential contributions of each profession or sector, especially the third sector?

To diagnose the connectivity of your Healthy Place Shaping approach, you may ask:

• Are you developing and nurturing healthy and supportive relationships between a wide range of partners and members of the community, across all parts of the system?
• Do you take an interest in other people's perspectives and potential contributions?
• Are we encouraging responsibility to be shared and owned by partners?
• Are we ensuring the broadest range of stakeholders is involved, crossing sectoral boundaries, embracing contributions of the third sector?
• How does this create a vision that is shared between partners, whatever their role in the system?