A report produced by the city’s Health is Wealth Commission, a body tasked with identifying factors contributing to the divergence of the city’s public health and wealth, acknowledges that despite recent economic growth, Liverpool has lower life expectancy, a higher percentage of the population with chronic illness and a disproportionate dependency on incapacity benefit when compared with other parts of England. In response to these findings, Liverpool PCT and Liverpool City Council have prioritised addressing health inequalities and improving well-being across the city.
How it works
The Year of Health and Well-being built on the success of Liverpool 2008 Capital of Culture. Launched by the NHS and Liverpool Council, it aimed to address the underlying factors that have increased health inequalities and to develop a cohesive programme to address lifestyle factors affecting public health.
The movement had a strong arts and culture focus which was supported by ‘five ways to well-being’, an approach designed to encourage people to focus on feeling better and keeping mentally healthy rather than focussing on illness. Workstreams to improve mental and physical well-being included singing, dance, better use 
of green space, healthy homes and workplace initiatives.
What it has achieved
The programme has delivered strong cross-organisational leadership around addressing the underlying causes of health inequalities, with the involvement of the PCT, other NHS bodies, the local authority and other neighbourhood, voluntary and community, and private sector organisations.
Service user-led mental health organisations played an important part advocating for improved services and changes in the approach to improving population lebel mental well-being.
The movement encouraged innovation and the need for ‘taking a leap of faith’. Liverpool PCT decided that the public health targets were the most difficult to reach and addressing them would require a leap of faith. The movement was successful in ensuring that mental health and well-being issues were recognised as being social determinants of health.
Further information
You can read this case study in full in our recent report ‘Public mental health and well-being – the local perspective’. This report is available to download in our publications library.
If you would like further information on our work on public mental health and well-being, please contact Nicola Stevenson, senior policy and research officer, at Nicola.stevenson@nhsconfed.org.