Lancashire and Cumbria’s health Equality Commission reported in 2022. The report A Hopeful Future: Equity and the social determinants of health in Lancashire and Cumbria - IHE (instituteofhealthequity.org) was published in October 2022, just three months after the new Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board was established and as the Integrated Care Partnership (ICP) was forming.

Since publication, local partners have embedded the recommendations into plans in the ICP, ICB, in each of the Health and Wellbeing Boards and through economic development plans including Lancashire 2050. A summary of key areas of progress includes:

•  Establishment of a Director level post within the ICB focused on working with voluntary, community, faith-based and social enterprise partners
• Agreement of a set of Health Equity indicators which will be reported on a 6 monthly basis to the ICP
• Continuation of the Anchor collaborative in Morecambe Bay
• Support and networking between NHS Trusts and the ICB to help their continued development as anchor organisations
• Increased focus on ill health prevention – including the establishment of the Lancashire and South Cumbria Tobacco Free Strategy and increased investment in NHS tobacco dependency services
• Continued work to strengthen the Cumbria & Lancashire Public Health Collaborative and joint Leadership group
• Increased joint working between public health and NHS population health at a system level and in each place – for example having a shared programme of work on agreed priorities
• Work to understand the needs of communities and to help address wider determinants
• Strengthened leadership of health equity including strengthening training and development opportunities across public health and continued roll out of the Population Health Academy to improve understanding of health equity within the NHS