Tackling inequalities in Northumberland was the focus as key stakeholders and senior leaders from the County Council, the NHS, voluntary and private sector including businesses came together. 
 

System leaders joined forces at the round table event to discuss a community strengths-based approach to tackling inequalities and identify how to expand work into policy and strategy change.   
 

Following agreement at the Northumberland Health and Wellbeing Board, the Inequalities Plan was signed in December.   It outlined key goals that can be delivered at scale over the coming years to level off and start to reduce the gap in healthy life expectancy.     

It commits to:     

The round table event marked the next stage of the work, identifying how to blend community strengths with strategic policy – bringing people, policy and place together to achieve the best outcomes for residents.  
 

Leader of Northumberland County Council, Glen Sanderson, said: “There are already lots of great things happening across the county.   
 

“One of the priorities in the Council's Corporate Plan is economic growth, we can see our unemployment count is falling.  And to help people have a healthy standard of living, we're investing in Citizen's Advice to help people reduce debt and improve their income, which helps reduce physical ill health and improve people's mental health, as well as giving people money to spend in their local economies. 
 

“But there is always more we can do to reduce inequalities and improve the wellbeing of our residents.  By bringing together system leaders today, we have had the opportunity to identify ways we can work together with a Northumberland wide approach to make a real difference. 
 

“We are committed to tackling inequalities and by working to achieve the key goals in the Inequalities Plan we aim to level off and start to reduce the gap in healthy life expectancy.” 
 

Abi Conway, Chief Executive of Citizens Advice Northumberland, said: “Tackling inequalities requires us all to work together, we cannot do this alone. Joined-up approaches across organisations is the way forward and that is what today has been about – working together to identify how we can make these changes happen. 
 

“This collaborative approach means we can work collaboratively to identify what communities can do for themselves, what they need some help with, and the role agencies need to play.”