A Place for Prevention
An action plan for improving the health and wellbeing of marginalised communities in Kent
Few would argue with the age-old axiom that prevention is better than cure, and yet it still remains the case that investment on prevention is significantly lower than that for treating illness.
Work undertaken by The Charted Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) and Public Health England (PHE) estimated that in 2014, £5.2bn was invested in prevention, representing 4.7% of total health spending (CIPFA and PHE, 2019).
The NHS Long Term Plan calls for a radical uplift in prevention, including a move towards population health management and using predictive prevention (linked to new opportunities for tailored screening, case finding and early diagnosis), to better support people to stay healthy and avoid illness complications (NHS England, 2019).
However, prevention can mean different things depending on the organisational and professional context. This report is the culmination of months of user engagement across two locations in the Kent and Medway footprint. It takes into account what prevention means from the top-down and the bottom-up. It provides the blueprint for how an entire county wide approach to prevention can be implemented through using this research as a case study.
To find out more about this report or our wider work, please contact george.evans-jones@bbi.uk.com.
Report Authors
Dr Jonathan Bashford
