HIA of Regional Strategies
Developing a model using the
Regional Economic Strategy as a pilot
Caroline Keir – HIA Development Manager
Rebecca Matthews – Health Policy Manager
YORKSHIRE
YORKSHIRE
YORKSHIRE
&
&
THE
& THE
THE
HUMBER
HUMBER
HUMBER
GOVERNMENT
GOVERNMENT OFFICE
OFFICE REGIONS
REGIONS
OF
OF ENGLAND
ENGLAND
Regional structures
DH Regional
Public Health Group
Government Office
Yorkshire and the Humber
Yorkshire and Humber
Assembly
Yorkshire Forward
Regional Development Agency
“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.
“Promoting and delivering public health intelligence”