Prevention and early intervention
People need to be able to get prevention and early intervention services quickly, at any point in their lives.
Services like assistive technology, enablement and rehabilitation can help at different times. They support people to stay independent. As people’s needs change, the support they need will also change.
Public sector and third sector organisations should work together. A clear, ongoing prevention strategy can help them join up services and make the best use of resources. We should make every contact count. Many partners, such as the fire service, are keen to support this work.
Public services are often not good at planning for demand. However, they can respond well at a local level. Too often, services only act when there is a crisis. By then, support is high cost and focuses on urgent needs.
We need a clear prevention strategy. This should identify needs early and offer support before problems become a crisis. For example, people may fall several times before they break a hip. Early, low-cost support can prevent these falls. This avoids higher costs later and helps improve long-term outcomes.
We need a clear and ongoing approach to prevention.
This has started with the Early Intervention Community Team. This is a multidisciplinary team that supports people to return home and helps avoid hospital admission. The Integrated Care System (ICS), created in 2022, supports this work. It helps organisations to work together on prevention.
The Community Care Provider Collaborative also provides an opportunity. It can bring organisations together to take a more proactive, strategic approach to population health. Initial priorities for the Collaborative include rolling out Integrated Neighbourhood Teams across the city.
The ICS Fairer Futures Fund also supports this work. It invests in community-led projects to improve health and wellbeing through prevention.
We have already seen positive results from investing in Neighbourhood Network Schemes (NNS) and support for carers. We now need to join up work across ICS partners. This will help us increase our impact and make better use of resources.
Page last updated: 29 June 2026
