Neighbourhood health

Across the UK, the NHS and its partners are embarking on a bold transformation; creating more human and joined up models of neighbourhood health, wellbeing and prevention, and dismantling long established institutional silos.

Culture and practice

The keys to transforming neighbourhood health

How teams work with people, each other and partners, is at the heart of our approach to neighbourhood health. We co-design and spread the culture and practice required to keep outcomes for people and communities at the centre, within a context of whole system transformation.

We’ve learned over many years that it is only when practitioners and partners focus on reimagining culture and practice that true transformation can take place.

We also know that neighbourhood culture and practice only has a chance to take root, grow and thrive when it drives decisions about the future of the system (its structures, accountabilities, financial and data flows).

Without a whole system shift in culture and practice, we risk:

• Recreating old models in new places, continuing to provide a ‘fix it’ model of care that doesn’t acknowledge the full complexity of people’s lives.
   
• Repeating old mistakes of top down change, which strips agency from patients and staff, and sustains systems where people feel ‘done to’ and staff operate from fear and compliance, rather than from trust and purpose.
   
• Reinforcing old incentives and accountabilities, that prioritise transactions over transformation, keeping practice and governance trapped in organisational silos.

Transformation rooted in culture and practice reframes why we care, who gets to decide what’s important, and how we show up and work together.

At its heart, this means:

• Looking beyond individual symptoms and taking account of people’s whole lives, their hopes and fears, and the environments which shape their health and wellbeing. 
   
• Enabling flexible partnerships between practitioners and individuals, tailoring care and creating health together.

• Working with communities to surface local assets, address barriers to health and care, and co-create equitable solutions which respond to real needs.

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What might this look like in practice?

How we can help you

Innovation Unit can help you to:

• Co-design with people and communities so that new models build on the ideas and assets of the local neighbourhood.
   
• Develop collaborative practice so that new values and culture are brought to life through new models of care and support.
   
• Rewire local systems so that neighbourhood health has the cross-system resources, leadership and accountability needed to take root and grow.
   
• Create actionable learning that can help you make the case for neighbourhood health and embed evaluation and improvement.