What the system can do: The role of national bodies in realising the value of people and communities in health and care

This report focuses on how national bodies can best remove barriers to progressing person- and community-centred approaches for health and wellbeing.

This report focuses on how national bodies can best remove barriers to progressing person- and community-centred approaches for health and wellbeing.

Key findings for policymakers and national system leaders:

  1. National bodies should focus on people as well as systems.
  2. National policies must be coordinated.
  3. National initiatives have potential but how they are implemented is central to their success.
  4. A thriving and sustainable voluntary and community sector is essential.
  5. A coherent measurement framework can help unlock barriers to person- and community-centred approaches for health and wellbeing.
  6. National bodies could do more to ensure co-production is embedded at all levels of the system.

The report - produced as part of the Realising the Value programme - focuses on how national bodies can best remove barriers to progressing person- and community-centred approaches for health and wellbeing.

It reviews the range of mechanisms that national bodies use to influence health and care services and suggests what national bodies might do to help implement and spread these approaches.

It is aimed at policymakers in government departments and arm’s-length bodies, but we hope it will also be useful to anyone interested in how national policies and context can better support the implementation and spread of person- and community-centred approaches for health and wellbeing.

Authors: Suzanne Wood and Sarah Henderson, The Health Foundation

Authors

Sarah Henderson

Sarah Henderson is Associate Director at the Health Foundation. Sarah has strategic overview of the delivery of improvement programmes for the organisation. This includes a significant…

Suzanne Wood

Suzanne Wood is an Improvement Fellow at the Health Foundation.