The Essex Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy

Every local area must have a Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy (JHWS) setting out the priorities identified through the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) that local government, the NHS and other partners will deliver together through the Health and Wellbeing Board.

The JHWS is intended to set ‘a small number of key strategic priorities for action’, where there is an opportunity for partners working through the Health and Wellbeing Board to ‘have a real impact’ through local initiatives and action and leading to an improvement in health and wellbeing outcomes and a reduction in health inequalities. 

The Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy strategy articulates a shared vision for health and wellbeing in Essex. It sets out our key countywide strategic priorities, which address four areas of focus:

• Improving mental health and wellbeing
• Addressing obesity, improving diet and increasing physical activity
• Influencing conditions and behaviours linked to health inequalities
• Enabling and supporting people with long-term conditions and disabilities.

For each we explain what our shared priorities will be at each life stage, who will deliver them, what the outcomes will be and how we will assess our progress. The strategy also explains our role in developing what we call the building blocks for health and wellbeing – for example, workforce, voluntary and community sector, innovative technologies, active communities, healthy places and the social determinants of health and wellbeing, like education, employment and housing.

The JHWS is jointly owned by partners through the Essex Health and Wellbeing Board, the District, Borough and City Councils’ HWB Partnership Boards, the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner, Safeguarding Boards and the voluntary and community sector.