Healthy homes and communities: working closer together to improve care

• Hear how integrating housing in health policies can help protect people’s health and improve health outcomes in communities.

• Learn about new initiatives and best practice ideas to support the health of those facing poor living conditions. 

In this session we will discuss the role of poor housing conditions are exacerbating existing health inequalities and what current plans across health care and housing to mitigate the long-term effects of unsuitable housing. 

• Hear about the interventions social housing associations are using to help people through the cost-of-living crisis. 

• Understand how health services can work closer together with housing and deliver better health outcomes for all.  

• Hear about the impact of poor housing conditions in the context of the Housing Ombudsman Service report, It’s not lifestyle, which outlines that landlords should adopt a zero-tolerance approach to damp and mould and give it a higher priority with a change in culture from being reactive to proactive.

In this session we will discuss how built environment, health, social care and environmental professionals can work together more effectively at policy, planning and delivery levels. 

• How those in health and care sector – including integrated care systems – are working with others across the housing sector to tackle inequalities.

• Understand why housing is essential to the success of integrated health and social care. 

• Hear about good practice integrating health, housing and social care services. 

• Learn about the importance of housing’s wider context including social infrastructure and environmental factors such as climate change. 

In this session we will explore how to enable people to leave hospital as soon as possible and avoid the harm that prolonged stay can cause. We will discuss examples of good practice, bringing together the NHS, housing and social care to create a ‘hospital from home’ for older people. 

• Hear how to improve existing homes and adapt them to the needs of older age. 

• Understand how to connect the dots and bring everyone working together to keep older people out of hospital and into their homes.  

• How the NHS, housing and social care can work together to create a ‘hospital from home’ for older people.

In this session we will explore how organisations are improving recovery outcomes for people experiencing mental health problems by integrating health, housing and social care expertise in services and reforming care pathways.

• Learn about how with housing playing a more central role, people can be supported to move back closer to home from out of area placements.

• Understand how a focus on clinical integration in housing services can improve quality, experience and outcomes.

• Hear how to embed a housing workforce into NHS services that improves pathway flow.

This closing session will take forward learning from the Healthy New Towns project, which changed how the health sector thinks about housing in the UK. Healthy New Towns, an initiative that focused on embedding housing principles from the planning stage of new homes.

• Learn about the impact of the Healthy New Towns project, and how those involved considered health and wellbeing in the planning and building of new homes.

• Understand the learning from the project and how the principles around healthy living and building resilient communities can be taken forward.