Central to our vision of enabling people to thrive and realise their potential is improving the health and wellbeing of people who live and work in Medway.
Our goal is to promote and improve health and well-being, giving our residents the opportunity to lead healthy, fulfilling and independent lives for longer, whilst knowing that they can connect to the right support at the right time.
We recognise that access to health and care services and support is important, but we also know the challenges we face in Medway with areas of relatively high deprivation. Inequality undoubtedly affects people’s health, evident in the varying life expectancy across different wards in Medway. We aim to tackle these inequalities through our work and important initiatives are now underway in Medway, including a major project focusing on tackling the wider determinants of health, for example employment, education, transport and community networks.
Working in partnership with our health services and key health partners to tackle these challenges will be a key priority for us in the coming years.
The council spends more than 60% of its budget caring for the most vulnerable in our community.
With an ageing population and increasing demand on our health and social care services, there are vastly increased pressures on our budgets and we will prioritise our spend to ensure we can care for those most in need and maximise the way we use our resources.
Through our focus on prevention, we will address the factors that influence health and wellbeing, with a primary focus on reducing health inequalities.
Sub-priorities
- Empowering people to achieve good health and wellbeing through prevention, with access to local activities and services that will enable and support them to lead independent, active and healthy lifestyles
- Support families to give their children the best start in life
- Work collaboratively to grow participation year on year in recreational play, sport and physical activity as a means of promoting improved physical and mental health and wellbeing
- Work in partnership with communities and organisations to address the issues that negatively aff ect health and wellbeing, making sure everyone has the opportunity to live long, healthy lives.