Gateshead Health and Wellbeing Strategy

Our Gateshead Joint Strategic Needs Assessment helps us to understand the key issues facing people in Gateshead. The ongoing challenges, and emerging issues, for health and wellbeing in Gateshead are set out by Health and Wellbeing Strategy objectives on the Marmot principles..

We know that people in Gateshead experience significant health inequalities.

Two babies, born on this day in Gateshead, could have as much as a 13-year difference in life expectancy due entirely to the circumstances into which they are born. 

 

If you look beyond Gateshead those same babies could have as much as a 16-year difference in life expectancy when compared to the most affluent area in Britain.

We have developed a Local Index of Need (LIoN), which brings together data for 39 indicators, so we can identify geographically where our most vulnerable communities are within Gateshead, and effectively target our resources. We use this data to group the population into different categories to better understand the level of need.

Overall Local Index of need (LIoN) 2019 (opens new window) is this correct?

Add images for Gateshead Residents' Thrive Category 2019 and 2025

From this we know that, during 2024, 26% of residents were in vulnerable, or very vulnerable, situations with a further 51% just coping. In 2019, 40% of residents were in vulnerable, or very vulnerable situations with a further 29% just coping. There has been a positive improvement for our most vulnerable residents but at the same time we have fewer thriving residents, and the challenge is to move more residents into managing or thriving situations.

We want to keep working to change this, to make Gateshead a place where fewer people need direct support, or are on the edge of not coping, and more people are thriving.

We want to help our communities not just survive, but to flourish, prosper and succeed. We are all working differently, to achieve the right outcome for those people and families who require more care and support.

In 2020, we reviewed the evidence on how best to achieve our goals and, as a result we adopted the six policy objectives outlined in The Marmot Review: Fair Society, Healthy Lives (2010) and reaffirmed in Health Equity in England: The Marmot Review 10 Years On (2020) . We have now added Objective 7 and Objective 8, which were introduced by the Institute of Health Equity in 2022 to reflect growing recognition of their impact on health equity.

1. Give every child the best start in life
2. Enable all children, young people and adults to maximise their capabilities and have control over their lives
3. Create fair employment and good work for all 
4. Ensure a healthy standard of living for all 
5. Create and develop healthy and sustainable places and communities
6. Strengthen the role and impact of ill health prevention
7. Tackle racism, discrimination, and their outcomes
8. Pursue environmental sustainability and health equity together