Methodology Very strong: Prevention is a key component of the strategy. It is either part of the vision, appears To achieve the research objectives: as a priority, principle, approach or features in the summary. The prevention that is emphasised clearly > we reviewed joint health and wellbeing strategies encompasses lower-level/ tertiary types of support for the third year in a row, and as well as primary and secondary examples. These > made a Freedom of Information (FOI) request of types of preventative services are available before, all English local authorities. during and after crisis point for a range of people and health problems. When reading the joint health and wellbeing Strong: Prevention is a key component of the strategies, we wanted to know: strategy. It appears as either part of the vision, as 1. Whether prevention was mentioned at all. a priority, principle, approach, or features in the summary. Prevention is in part understood as early 2. Whether prevention was mentioned in the intervention and lower-level support. Although there summary (if there was one). is recognition of the importance of these services, 3. Whether pr evention was mentioned in the they are often focused solely on one stage of the vision/ aim. person’s illness, rather than before, during and after. 4. Whether prevention was mentioned as a priority. A strong recognition of the importance of lower-level 5. Whether pr evention was mentioned as a preventative services but often only to one group of principle, approach or value. people, e.g. people with dementia, rather than all 6. Whether the Car e Act (Care Bill), Better Care people who may benefit. Fund (Transformation Fund) or NHS Five Year Neither strong nor weak: Prevention is probably Forward View were mentioned. mentioned as a principle, approach, priority (or 7. How str ong its focus on prevention was, and component of one) or features in the summary. whether its focus was in line with the Care Act’s However, it is not clear that prevention has been statutory guidance (each strategy was labelled wholly emphasised or understood in Care Act terms. very strong, strong, neither strong nor weak, Although there may be an obvious commitment to weak, or very weak). shifting towards prevention and early intervention, it is unclear whether this encompasses preventative The purpose of 2 to 5 was to determine whether lower-level support. there is any sort of emphasis on prevention. Generally, joint health and wellbeing strategies have Weak: Although prevention is mentioned, or an overriding ‘vision’ or ‘aim’, a set of ‘priorities’ may exist as a component of a priority, principle, (usually between three and five but sometimes approach, or may feature in the summary, it clearly more) and some guiding ‘principles’, ‘approaches’ only focuses on preventing a problem from arising or ‘values’. These tend to frame the strategies and through awareness raising or education (e.g. indicate their main areas of focus. preventing underage pregnancy by investing in sexual education). The purpose of 6 was to help determine whether national policy and practice developments have Very weak: No emphasis of any kind on prevention. translated into local plans. It’s important to note that some strategies were The purpose of 7 was to evaluate whether its due to be reviewed while completing this project interpretation of prevention was in-line with the Care and were subject to change. Moreover, they ranged Act’s statutory guidance. The labels (very strong, in length, detail and had different timeframes. strong, neither strong nor weak, weak, very weak) The combination of these factors makes the were ascribed according to whether prevention labels attributed to the strategies subjective and was a key element of the strategy and whether presumably temporary. Therefore, these results are prevention seemed to encompass lower-level/ intended to provide a guide as to the strength of the tertiary types of support as well as primary and strategies’ focus on prevention, as well as a guide to secondary examples. the year-on-year trend British Red Cross Prevention in action [email protected] l l 11