Cheshire East Health and Wellbeing Board’s boost for mental wellbeing

Cheshire East Health and Wellbeing Board has endorsed a strategy to boost mental wellbeing for people of all ages in the sub-region.

The board’s partners will work with the Cheshire and Warrington Public Sector Transformation Board to deliver on recommendations contained in the strategy, entitled ‘Heading in the right direction – An all-age mental wellbeing strategy for Cheshire, Warrington and Halton 2019-21’.

The health and wellbeing board has agreed to support the strategy and advance work to improve partner commissioning as part of sub-regional and local approaches to promoting good mental wellbeing.

The mental wellbeing strategy aims to focus on the promotion of positive mental wellbeing, and the prevention of mental health conditions, via early intervention. Key to this is support for people to protect and improve their own wellbeing and reduce risk factors for mental health problems.

Following extensive partnership work and engagement with stakeholders, the strategy identified five key objectives:

● Speaking up for mental wellbeing, challenging stigma and discrimination and promoting early self-care;

● Supporting more people with mental health issues in work and seeking to enter work;

● Promoting more places to live that are safe, stable and add to the quality of life’

● Having a more integrated approach to mental health support; and

● Improving the mental health of young people.

Councillor Jill Rhodes, Cheshire East Council cabinet member for public health, said: “This is an important programme that will help to tackle issues that impact on mental health and wellbeing. The burden of mental ill-health is a significant problem across the country, so prevention is a vital element of efforts to tackle the issue.

“Our aim is to develop more effective ways to promote positive mental wellbeing across the population. This will also require targeted actions for those groups at more risk of poor mental health and effective early intervention for those who are struggling.

“With our partners, we have looked for promising approaches to achieve each of the five objectives and the draft strategy recommends a raft of proposals to help deliver this.”

The proposals, which form the strategy delivery plan, include:

● Promotion of the national Time to Change and Public Health England’s Every Mind Matters mental health programmes;

● A focus on providing early interventions;

● A mental wellbeing audit of housing, employment, community safety and regeneration schemes;

● Evaluation of how effective our community wellbeing schemes are at supporting those of all ages with mental health concerns;

● Enhanced strategic partnership working – such as with Cheshire and Mersey Public Health Network;

● Work to ensure the evidence base/data for the strategy is up to date.

Cllr Rhodes added: “We are better than the national average for all four of the measures for mental wellbeing: life satisfaction; felling life is worthwhile; happiness; and anxiety. But we cannot afford to be complacent as mental health issues are real and ever-present in our communities.

“Mental health is everyone’s business – individuals, families, employers, educators and communities all need to play their part. Good mental health and resilience are fundamental to our physical health, our relationships, our education, our training, our work and to achieving our potential.”

For information about mental health support visit the council’s website at: www.cheshireeast.gov.uk/livewell/health-matters/health-conditions/mental-health/mental-health.aspx