Health bosses outline strategy for longer living in Wolverhampton

The city’s director of public health John Denley will present his annual report on the health and wellbeing of the city for 2021-2022 to council bosses next Wednesday, in collaboration with Councillor Jasbir Jaspal, cabinet member for health and wellbeing.

At the centre of the report is health chiefs’ collective ambition that ‘Wulfrunians will live longer, healthier lives’.

It highlights six overarching priorities that officials aim to address in the coming year:

• Thriving economy in all parts of the city.

• Strong families where children grow up well and achieve their full potential.

• Fulfilled lives for all with quality care for those that need it.

• Healthy inclusive communities.

• Good homes in well connected neighbourhoods.

• More local people into good jobs and training.

The report documents the council’s ‘Our City: Our Plan’ pledge, which sets out how it will continue to work alongside local, regional and national partners to improve all aspects of living for local people.

It says: “This is our strategic framework for Levelling Up, built on the recognition of the intrinsic links between health, education, jobs and skills and the wider economy.

“The need to tackle this ‘healthy life expectancy challenge’ in Wolverhampton was previously articulated in our pre-pandemic public health vision for 2030. Covid-19 has acted to both intensify this challenge and shine a light on the urgency required to address health inequalities.

“Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) and cancer remain the biggest killers overall, with the biggest causes of premature mortality being CVD, infant mortality and alcohol specific causes.

“For example, alcohol-related mortality in Wolverhampton was the second highest in the West Midlands in 2020 with a rate of 57.6 per 100,000. This is significantly higher than England and West Midlands figures.

“Similarly, drug-misuse deaths in Wolverhampton are also higher than national and regional rates and have significantly risen from 3.5 in 2017-19 to 5.9 per 100,000 in 2018-20,” adds the report.

“In addition, under-75 coronary heart disease mortality in Wolverhampton was the second highest in the Midlands NHS Region in 2017-19, with a rate of 64.2 per 100,000. This figure is significantly higher than England figure of 37.5 per 100,000.

“In collaboration with primary care and Black Country and West Birmingham Clinical Commissioning Group (BCWBCCG), we will set up community health promotion events in areas of highest need, engaging with and co-producing the offer with residents to provide lasting provision/engagement.

“This is part of our ambition to increase coverage and access across the city, particularly those from areas of low uptake. Aiming to pro-actively tackle health inequalities by improving detection and treatment of CVD in the most deprived areas within Wolverhampton,” it says.

The report is dedicated to the council’s former Director of Public Health Ros Jervis, who served from 2014-2017 and died in June 2022.