Gateshead Health and Wellbeing Strategy (Draft update)

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 based 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) to identify geographically where our most vulnerable communities are within Gateshead, so that we can effectively target our resources.

Overall Local Index of need (LIoN) 2019 (opens new window)

Gateshead Residents' level of need - 2019 and 2024

From this we know that, during 2024, 26% were in vulnerable, or very vulnerable, situations with a further 51% just coping. In 2019, 40% 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 continue 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. 

We have reviewed available evidence on the most effective way to achieve our ambitions. In response to our review, we have adopted the policy objectives set out in the 'Marmot Review: Fair Society, Healthy Lives' (2010) and reconfirmed in the 'Health Equity in England: The Marmot Review 10 years on' (2020) as a framework to help deliver our vision of making Gateshead a place where everyone thrives. The 8 policy objectives, known as Marmot principles, are: 

The policy objectives are:

• give every child the best start in life
• enable all children, young people and adults to maximise their capabilities and have control over their lives
• create fair employment and good work for all
• ensure a healthy standard of living for all
• create and develop healthy and sustainable places and communities
• strengthen the role and impact of ill health prevention
• tackle racism, discrimination, and their outcomes
• pursue environmental sustainability and health equity together