Population Health Prevention Strategy 2023 to 2027

About the strategy

Public health is about preventing illness and helping people live longer, healthier lives.

Our new Public Health strategy says what we will do over the next 5 years to improve the physical and mental health of Islanders.

The average health of the 100,000 people that live in Jersey compares well to the UK. But recent reports have shown that some groups are much worse off or have a higher risk of becoming unwell. These avoidable differences in health are known as health inequalities. If we can understand these better, we can help all Islanders be healthier for longer.

We developed this new strategy with help from

• Islanders
• charities
• community groups
• Government

We looked carefully at local health data. We studied what other countries have done to help their citizens stay well. Then we brought all this together to give us 6 strategic priorities.

Seizing the Opportunity: A Public Health Prevention Strategy for Jersey 2023 to 2027 

Our 6 strategic priorities

Understand 

It's important that we get a better understanding of health in the Island. Better data will help us to see how age, gender, income, and ethnicity influences health. This improved understanding will help us make efficient use of Government resources.

Protect

The Government of Jersey protects Islanders from infectious diseases and extreme weather. It also protects Islanders from environmental hazards. This crucial aspect of our work is usually called health protection.

Health protection services are delivered by lots of different organisations working together. Public Health's job is often to lead this partnership to keep Islanders safe. A recent review of health protection services showed they could be better coordinated.

Our main task is to work with our many partners to achieve this.

Improve

Like most countries, Jersey has an ageing population. More people are becoming unwell with long-term illnesses like diabetes and heart disease. Every year, new medicines and medical technology mean healthcare becomes more expensive. This will make it difficult to fund healthcare in the future.

One way to slow this increase in cost is to invest in prevention. Preventing someone from becoming ill is cheaper than treating someone who is already unwell.

These long-term illnesses like obesity and depression share common causes, or risks. Eating well, being active, not drinking too much, and not smoking, all help us stay well for longer. Our strategy will make it easier for people to be healthy by shaping the places we live, work, and play. This work is usually called Health Improvement.

To do this, we will use several different approaches. Health in all policies can help us improve the social determinants of health. We will work with partners to make Jersey an easier place to make a healthy choice, and, in some cases, we will carry out behaviour change programmes for people who really need them.

Work together 

Preventing ill health and promoting good health is very much a team effort. Our aim is to build on the fantastic work already being done by partners in Government and in the community. Our health is influenced by many different factors. Money, friends, work, education, food etc are all more important than health services for preventing illness so, we need all kinds of people to work together. These include Government departments, charities, businesses, social enterprises, employers, communities, and families. 

One of the Public Health team's jobs is to lead this collaborative approach. This will help us prevent illness. Our work is informed by consultation with Islanders and their communities. We also study data and evidence to see what has worked elsewhere. Then we can bring people together to discuss and agree the best way to tackle the Island’s issues. This work takes time and energy to build trust and mutual understanding. We know mental health is a big priority for Government and Islanders, so this is one of our first areas of focus.

Innovate 

For some health problems there are proven solutions. For example, we know vaccines are fantastic at preventing childhood illnesses but some problems need experimentation and innovation. For example, almost every country in the world is seeing an increase in illness caused by poor diet, but no one has yet worked out the best way to prevent diet-related disease for a whole population. This is especially difficult for people who don't have a lot of money or spare time.

We have identified several pressing issues in Jersey that need innovation. They are:

Sustain 

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Jersey had a small team working on population health. Since then, we have built a team that can cover much of what a modern country has a right to expect.

Our staff worked incredibly hard during the pandemic. Our final priority is to continue to invest in and take care of our newly established team. This will help us deliver an ambitious programme of work in a sustainable way. We also want to role model the focus on prevention and wellbeing that we are encouraging others to adopt.

Maintaining Jersey's ability to improve health through prevention will need investment. Our funding is currently complicated and insecure, with lots of short-term, ring-fenced funds. Consolidating these into a single, long-term budget would be a huge help.

It will help us deliver much of this strategy, either in full or in part. Some parts of this strategy need extra funds. These are clearly marked in the action plan.

Population Health Action Plan 2023 to 2027