

The health and wellbeing board is focussed on how we (individuals, families, communities, organisations and local politicians) can make Dudley
a great
place to live
Dudley Health & Wellbeing strategy 2023 - 28
longer, safer healthier lives
Our health and wellbeing strategy is about how we (individuals, families, communities, organisations and local politicians) can make Dudley a place where everyone can live:
‘longer, safer, healthier lives’
The COVID-19 pandemic caused disruption across society and within services, negatively impacting on many people’s physical, mental and emotional health and wellbeing.
Subsequent cost-of-living pressures have made it much more challenging for lots of people and families on lower incomes – including those in work – to be able to live a healthy life. As elsewhere, increasing poverty is widening the gaps in physical, mental and emotional health between communities in Dudley with long term impacts on people’s life chances, and particularly for our children and young people.
During these challenging times, however, we have seen our communities pull together to support each other, the strength of our voluntary organisations, and the ability of our services to respond, react, and to work differently. There has been a better understanding of the health and wellbeing needs of those who live and work in Dudley,the need to work together, and a renewed focus on tackling health inequalities –the difference in health status that existsbetween different communities.
Our 2023-2028 health, wellbeing and inequalities strategy for Dudley is about how we (individuals,families, communities, organisations and local politicians) can build upon our strengths and work together to improve health and wellbeing, going further and fastest in our most disadvantaged communities.
The strategy is focussing on 3 goals:
1. Children are ready for school by the age of 4
2. Fewer people die from circulatory disease
3. More women are screened for breast cancer
Read our 2023 -28 Health and Wellbeing Strategy
Evaluation of our strategy 2017 - 2022
Dudley’s Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2017-22 set out our local health and wellbeing priorities for our residents and the approaches that would be taken for everyone in Dudley to live longer, safer and healthier lives. It focussed our energies on what we believed would have the biggest impact on reducing the effects of disadvantage and increasing the strength of our communities at that time.
Our chosen 3 goals were:
• Promoting a Healthy Weight
• Reducing the Impact of Poverty
• Reducing Loneliness and Isolation
We also identified four principles to inform the way organisations, communities and individuals
could work together, what they could do and how they could show they had made a difference
to health and wellbeing in Dudley. These principles were:
• A new relationship with communities
• A shift to prevention
• A stronger focus on joining up health and care services
• A stronger focus on what the strategy has achieved