Greater Manchester's Live Well mission has today (Tuesday 26
November) received a £10m vote of confidence from the
Government.
The city-region has been selected as one of eight new trailblazer
areas in the Get Britain Working White Paper, which sets out
reforms to employment support.
The new funding will help us deliver on-the-doorstep support to
improve health, build self-esteem and get people ready to move
into work.
The £10m trailblazer will build on the work of Greater
Manchester's established Live Well movement – a grass roots
support system that tackles inequality and helps people to
thrive. It will join up health, wellbeing, and employment support
at a local level.
Nearly half a million people are out of work in Greater
Manchester and 137,000 of our residents are long term sick.
Research shows that helping people overcome the health and social
barriers holding them back could get 150,000 of our residents
into employment in the next five years.
Live Well centres and spaces will bring together NHS Primary Care
facilities with the skills and employment support currently
delivered through Job Centre Plus.
Embedded in local communities, they will offer social prescribing
as well as other services, tailored to local need – from debt
counselling, mental health services and help getting online to
food banks, family hubs and social and sports clubs.
They will be run in partnership with social enterprises and the
voluntary, community and faith organisations who know our
residents best, providing practical wraparound help to overcome
the everyday issues holding people back.
Greater Manchester's Live Well ecosystem will show how we can
shift the balance of public spending to tackle the root causes of
poor health and inequality, rather than only treating their
consequences.
It will aim to create the virtuous circle Lord Darzi described in
his review of the NHS – where improving health and wellbeing
reduces pressure on public services and gets more people into
good work, which in turn grows the economy, raising taxes to fund
our public services.
Live Well will be supported by Greater Manchester's Housing First
approach which recognises that good health, good education, and
good jobs cannot come without a good, permanent home. Live Well
centres will offer housing advice and support for renters,
including access to property checks and enforcement action
against rogue landlords to legal advice to challenge wrongful
evictions.
Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy said:
“For people to be working well, they have to be living well – and
the current job support system cannot do that with a narrow,
box-ticking focus.
“Greater Manchester has already got a proven track record of
helping people back into work. Our focus is on names and not
numbers, and on providing a more empowering, more supportive
experience within the community.
“This trailblazer will enable us to build on strong foundations
and develop Live Well on a bigger scale, so we can tackle the
root causes of inequality and help more people get good jobs here
in our city-region.”
The Government is targeting a national employment rate of 80 per
cent, and helping to remove barriers to employment in Greater
Manchester could help meet that goal.
Greater Manchester's Working Well pilot scheme, which has been
managed at a local level, has helped around 27,500 people into
new jobs, and helped another 76,500 to access training
opportunities and support to prepare them for employment.
Working Well was ranked as one of the top national programmes for
job outcomes. It was also shown to have resulted in better
integration of local services compared to national DWP-led
programmes, and delivered better value for money.
National
data suggests that the proportion of working-age adults
across the North West not in employment and not looking for a job
is around 23.6 per cent.
Notes to editors
Working Well – Work and
Health Programme: Written evidence from Greater Manchester
Combined Authority to the Work and Pensions Committee
Live Well is Greater Manchester's commitment to ensuring great
everyday support is available in every neighbourhood. It will
tackle health, social and economic inequalities by changing how
we work with communities and in public services to grow
opportunities for everyone to Live Well. Live Well will ensure
everyone has the support, control, connections and resources to
lead a healthy happy life.
Greater Manchester's ambitious vision builds on Live Well as a
programme and a movement for community-led health and wellbeing
that has been gaining momentum over the last year. The programme
is supported by £1million from the National Lottery Community
Fund, the largest community funder in the UK, which has been
funding ‘accelerator work' in five areas of Greater Manchester,
plus events which give people across Greater Manchester an
opportunity to come together to build our movement and galvanise
the whole GM ecosystem around community-driven prevention.
