HIA of Regional Strategies

Developing a model using the Regional Economic Strategy as a pilot

Caroline Keir – HIA Development ManagerRebecca Matthews – Health Policy Manager

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“Promoting and delivering public health intelligence”

Regional structures

Government Office Yorkshire and the Humber

Yorkshire and HumberAssembly

Yorkshire ForwardRegional Development Agency

DH Regional Public Health Group

“Promoting and delivering public health intelligence”

Regional Public Health Groups

Lead work with local and regional government and NHS to ensure regional partners policies and activities take account of their health impact (housing, transport, planning, employment, education & skills, environment, rural, environment, crime & community safety)

(Choosing Health, Annex B)

“Promoting and delivering public health intelligence”

Value of regional strategies to public health agenda

• Opportunity to develop “healthy public (regional) policy”

• Opportunity to influence investment (RES invested £737m)

• Opportunity to link regional strategies to regional strategic framework for health (health and economy)

• Opportunity to use HIA as a tool at policy level on wider determinant issues

“Promoting and delivering public health intelligence”

Regional Economic Strategies

• Clear focus on economic development (business, skills & training, environment and regeneration)

• Evidence based economic policy measures• SA and SEA• Address underlying problems – social exclusion, inequality• Strategic alignment• National policy delivery• Health and economic impact• Spatially relevant and mutually reinforcing programmes• Promote equality and diversity

“Promoting and delivering public health intelligence”

Approach to influencing regional strategies

• Public Health and NHS input as active stakeholders

• Work with partners to raise awareness of regional strategies through Regional Health Executive Forum

• Actively input to the review and development of strategies (Workshops/ briefing papers/policy advice)

• Contributing to SEA/SA

“Promoting and delivering public health intelligence”

HIA development at a regional level

• Strengthened health element within sustainability appraisal

• Regional HIA project (mapping, piloting, establishing a post)

• Experience of health input to SA/SEA of regional strategies

• RES provided opportunity to address HIA as tool to really focus on the health considerations of regional policy

“Promoting and delivering public health intelligence”

Key elements of a model for HIA of regional strategies

• HIA as a mainstream (continuous) process

• Integrating impact assessment

• Stakeholder engagement is crucial

“Promoting and delivering public health intelligence”

Why the RES was used as the pilot

• It was timely

• RPHG had laid foundations with RDA

• Offered opportunity to integrate with SA/SEA

“Promoting and delivering public health intelligence”

How did it go?

• Rapid HIA - quick process

• “[The HIA] was very involving and challenging but also pragmatic” from RDA written feedback.

• Parallel SA/SEA and HIA processes

• Enthusiasm for next steps:- Integrating HIA with SA/SEA- further work with RPHG to mainstream HIA- Following through to implementation- Working on indicators- Steering group continues to meet

“Promoting and delivering public health intelligence”

Key Lessons

• HIA draws on core public health skills and can be mainstreamed with minimal additional resource – can achieve a lot with a little

• Be succinct

• Be pragmatic

• Key issue hampering integrated SA/SEA/HIA approach a concern that it should be expert driven

• Level of success depends on who you have at the table

• It takes time to develop genuine HIA partnerships.