Warrington’s Health and Wellbeing Board has published its annual report 2022-2023. The report looks at key achievements within public health over the past year, outlines progress on the strategic themes set out in the Health and Wellbeing Strategy – ‘Starting Well, Staying Well and Ageing Well’ - and reflects on the challenges in achieving these in Warrington.

The latest data indicates that healthy life expectancy in Warrington is similar to the average for England.

However, there remains a gap in life expectancy between the most and least deprived areas, and the cost of living crisis means an increased risk of more people living in poverty.

To address these challenges and wider health and wellbeing issues across Warrington, the report sets out key local partnership priorities for the year ahead, which include:

• Supporting people to ‘Live Well’ – the Living Well programme aims to connect people with organisations and services to give them support to live as independently as possible within their communities
• Supporting people with low-level mental health issues – work needs to continue to support people with low-level mental health issues like anxiety and depression, to ensure further mental health issues are prevented
• Food poverty and food security – more partnership work is required to ensure those living in poverty and affected by the cost of living crisis get the support they need

The report focuses on new initiatives such as the Town Deal-funded health and social care academy at Warrington & Vale Royal College and how it is providing local people with education, skills, training and experience in a range of health and care roles to deliver a sustainable workforce development for the future.

It also acknowledges the importance of the £3.1 million Warrington Living Well Hub which is due to open later this year. With a focus on early intervention and the prevention of physical and mental ill health, the Living Well Hub will be a safe space where residents can go to talk and get advice to help with any challenges that may be impacting negatively on their general health and wellbeing, enabling them to live well and independently for longer.

In addition, the report highlights the importance of taking action on food poverty and promoting good mental health, including through the ‘Happy? Ok? Sad?’ website which has recently been redesigned to make it more accessible to anyone who needs to access mental health support.

Warrington Borough Council’s Cabinet member for statutory health and adult social care, Cllr Paul Warburton, who is also chair of Warrington’s Health and Wellbeing Board, said: “Our annual report sets out our key priorities for the year ahead, and identifies some of the work we need to do to address our shared, key challenges.

“It’s crucial that we continue to work together to meet these challenges. Through partnership working I firmly believe we can continue to make real progress in delivering the right approaches locally which will better meet people’s needs, reduce health inequalities and help to improve the health and wellbeing of all Warrington’s communities.”

Warrington Borough Council’s cabinet member for public health and wellbeing, Cllr Maureen McLaughlin, said: “This is a key document, which outlines the importance of vital partnership work between the council, health providers, the voluntary sector, schools and colleges and our communities in improving health and wellbeing for everyone in Warrington.

“As part of our continued recovery from the Covid pandemic it is more important than ever that we take firm steps to tackle health inequalities in our borough. We can only do this by working together.

“I’m pleased to see the good progress in this regard highlighted in the report. Initiatives such as our Health and Social Care Academy and the Living Well Hub provide vital training and connect our communities to the services and support they need, bringing a range of partners together under one roof.

“It’s good to see highlighted the progress we have made in prioritising our response to food poverty and the cost of living crisis, as well as improving our ability to intervene earlier to support people suffering with mental health problems.”

You can read Warrington health and wellbeing annual report in full at warrington.gov.uk/health-and-wellbeing-board-annual-reports