Healthier Together is a national programme implemented at ICB/health board level, encouraging patients and healthcare professionals to work together in order to improve how local healthcare is delivered. This approach promotes the co-development of core content hosted by all ICBs, along with the sharing of good practice between regions, whilst allowing each site to maintain autonomy over local content and implementation.
The website (www.healthiertogether.nhs.uk) provides advice for parents, young people and pregnant women alongside clinical resources for healthcare professionals and information for professionals working within social care, the voluntary sector and education, so that families receive consistently high-quality, evidence-based care whatever service or clinician they see. This is backed by a companion app that guides parents and pregnant women through simple red/amber/green symptom checks, helping them decide confidently whether, when and where to seek help.
Since launching across Wessex in 2014, Healthier Together has grown to cover 17 ICS/health board sites across the UK.
Promoting integrated care through partnership working
The programme works with the Institute of Health Visiting (iHV) to develop standardised core content on prevention and early intervention, with the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) on acute illness content for children, and with the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) on maternity acute illness content. It has collaborated with the NHSE Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) team on referral pathways for primary care staff, with the Born in Bradford programme on neurodiversity resources, with DfE on improving school attendance, with the National Literacy Trust on speech delay, with Health Professionals for Safer Screens on addressing screentime in children, and with Home-Start UK to strengthen voluntary-sector support for vulnerable families.
