Glossary

The Institute of Health Equity (IHE) was commissioned by the Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership (HCP) to support work to reduce health inequalities in the region through action on the social determinants of health and to build back fairer from COVID-19. 

The All Together Fairer report sets out inequalities in health and in the social determinants of health in Cheshire and Merseyside and assesses the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on health inequalities and the social determinants. It points to the role of austerity policies and associated funding cuts between 2010-20 in driving these inequalities.

The recommendations made in the report cover the key social determinants of health – the eight Marmot principles and seven actions across for the Cheshire and Merseyside stakeholders and system. The recommendations are classified in two categories: Year 1 (2022-23) and Years 2-5 (2023-27) and outline the actions on the social determinants of health to develop a healthier and more equitable Cheshire and Merseyside.  To measure progress a set of “beacon” indicators have been developed.

https://champspublichealth.com/all-together-fairer/

Emergency services and general medical and surgical treatment for time-limited disorders rather than long-term residential care for chronic illness.

Allied Health Professionals provide system-wide care to assess, treat, diagnose and discharge patients across social care, housing, education, and independent and voluntary sectors. Through adopting a holistic approach to healthcare, Allied Health Professionals are able to help manage patients’ care throughout the life course from birth to palliative care. Their focus is on prevention and improvement of health and wellbeing to maximise the potential for individuals to live full and active lives within their family circles, social networks, education / training and the workplace. 

Beyond is the Cheshire and Merseyside HCP children and young people’s transformation programme. This is a partnership across the HCP landscape with Local Authorities (Directors of Childrens Services and Public Health), health, and the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector partners creating a social movement with a focus on early intervention and prevention.

Beyond has 6 key priorities that reflect both Cheshire and Merseyside wide and plans in our nine Places and support delivery of the NHS England Long Term Plan. Plans aim to support deliverer of the HCP aim of giving every child the best start in life, It has been designed to bring partners together to improve outcomes for CYP.  Programme priorities are explicitly designed to tackle these challenges in a new way. 

All priorities are linked to the cross-cutting Starting Well themes (delivery and research), Core 20 PLUS 5 and Marmot indicators to ensure a population health approach aimed at tackling the wider determinants of health inequalities.

The Care Quality Commission monitors, inspects and regulates health and social care services. They then publish their findings, including ratings, to help people choose care.

The Champs Public Health Collaborative has developed a comprehensive and systematic approach to improving public health priorities by large scale action and working together as system leaders across Cheshire and Merseyside.

The Collaborative is a long-standing formal partnership of Cheshire and Merseyside’s nine Directors of Public Health and their teams, serving a population of 2.6 million people. The Collaborative also has a strategic influencing role within the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and the Cheshire & Warrington sub-region.

Working to the ethos of ‘collaborative action, local impact’, the Collaborative tackles a number of priorities, agreed with the UK Health Security Agency, the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, the Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership and NHS England, that are common to every area and where progress can be best made through collective action.

The Collaborative’s purpose is to energise the whole system and influence strategic partnerships to focus on prevention, health inequalities and use of the best data and evidence. Directors of Public Health have also adopted lead roles, working on behalf of each other across the subregion.

https://champspublichealth.com/

A provider collaborative which brings together acute and specialist NHS Trusts across Cheshire and Merseyside to work together at scale in ways which benefit patients.

CIPHA is a population health management platform, which was established in three months across Cheshire and Merseyside to help the health and care system manage the Coronavirus crisis and to drive its recovery. A collaboration involving the NHS, local government and Liverpool University, is central to the region’s response and recovery, including virtual ward programmes. It is also key to mass testing, vaccine delivery and national investigations on re-opening events. The CIPHA expansion programme based on the CIPHA blueprint is working with other partners, co-ordinating the roll out of the programme across a population in excess of 16m citizens. In this way CIPHA is acting as an enabler, supporting access to data sets and the technical capabilities required for the mature population analytics now required in the NHS

A Citizens’ Panel is a large, demographically representative group of citizens regularly used to assess public preferences and opinions.

Before July 1st 2022, Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) planned and bought most hospital and community NHS services in their local areas. From July 1st 2022, the responsibilities previously held by Cheshire and Merseyside's CCGs transferred to NHS Cheshire and Merseyside.

The CVFSE sector is an important partner for statutory health and social care agencies and plays a key role in improving health, well-being and care outcomes.

These organisations improve health outcomes and tackle health inequalities not only by delivering services but also by shaping their design and advocating for, representing and amplifying the voice of service users, patients and carers. Their input is essential to a vibrant local health economy.

Representatives of CVFSE play a key role in our HCP and our Place based working.

Core20PLUS5 is a national NHS England approach to support the reduction of health inequalities at both national and system level. The approach defines a target population cohort and identifies '5' focus clinical areas requiring accelerated improvement.  There are programmes with one aimed at our adults and one at children and young people.

https://www.england.nhs.uk/about/equality/equality-hub/national-healthcare-inequalities-improvement-programme/core20plus5/

An Electronic Patient Record is a high-tech electronic patient record system which aims to modernise and improve the way patient information is transferred and delivered across NHS trusts to provide better patient care.

The NHS needs to plan for, and respond to, a wide range of incidents and emergencies that could affect health or patient care. These could be anything from extreme weather conditions to an outbreak of an infectious disease or a major transport accident.

This programme of work is referred to in the health community as Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response (EPRR).

NHS Foundation Trusts are a different type of NHS organisation with a stronger local influence. Foundation Trust hospitals are still part of the NHS and continue to treat patients according to NHS principles of free healthcare according to need.

Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) is a national programme designed to improve the treatment and care of patients through in-depth review of services, benchmarking, and presenting a data-driven evidence base to support change.

The programme undertakes clinically-led reviews of specialties, combining wide-ranging data analysis with the input and professional knowledge of senior clinicians to examine how things are currently being done and how they could be improved.

GIRFT is part of an aligned set of programmes within NHS England. The programme has the backing of the Royal Colleges and professional associations.

https://gettingitrightfirsttime.co.uk/

Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership (HCP) is the name given to our ICP (Integrated Care Partnership).

The Integrated Care Partnership (ICP) – called Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership – will provide a forum for NHS leaders and local authorities to come together, as equal partners, alongside important stakeholders from across Cheshire and Merseyside.

Together, Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership will generate an integrated care strategy to improve health and care outcomes and experiences for people in Cheshire and Merseyside, for which all partners will be accountable.

Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership will be a dedicated forum to enhance relationships between the leaders across the health and care system, interact with and support the development of Place-Based Partnerships.

The independent national champion for people who use health and social care services, using feedback from communities to find out what matters to people, and help make sure their views shape the support they need.

Health and Wellbeing Boards are formal committees of local authorities charged with promoting greater integration and partnership between bodies from the NHS, public health and local government. They have a statutory duty, with NHS partners, to produce a joint strategic needs assessment and a joint health and wellbeing strategy for their local population.

Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) will be established as new statutory organisations to lead integration within the NHS. The Cheshire and Merseyside ICB will have a unitary board and minimum requirements for board membership will be set in legislation.

The Integrated Care Board will be responsible for the day-to-day running of the NHS in Cheshire and Merseyside, including planning and buying healthcare services.

The current functions of Cheshire and Merseyside’s nine clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) will transfer to NHS Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Care Board by July 2022, following their closure.

The board will be known simply as NHS Cheshire and Merseyside.

An Integrated Care System (ICS) brings together the NHS organisations, councils, and wider partners in a defined geographical area to deliver more joined up approaches to improving health and care outcomes.

There are 42 ICSs in England, including Cheshire and Merseyside, which is one of the largest in the country.

From July 2022, Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Care System has have legal status and will include a new NHS body called NHS Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Care Board (ICB), and a statutory Integrated Care Partnership (ICP) called Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership.

The Integrated Care Partnership (ICP) – called Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership – will provide a forum for NHS leaders and local authorities to come together, as equal partners, alongside important stakeholders from across Cheshire and Merseyside.

Together, Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership will generate an integrated care strategy to improve health and care outcomes and experiences for people in Cheshire and Merseyside, for which all partners will be accountable.

Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership will be a dedicated forum to enhance relationships between the leaders across the health and care system, interact with and support the development of Place-Based Partnerships.

The ICP will retain the Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership brand.

Improving Me is a partnership of 27 NHS organisations across Cheshire and Merseyside aiming to improve Women's Health and Maternity Experiences.

https://www.improvingme.org.uk/about-us/

Inclusion health is an umbrella term used to describe people who are socially excluded, who typically experience multiple overlapping risk factors for poor health, such as poverty, violence and complex trauma.

The groups include: people experiencing homelessness, drug and alcohol dependence, vulnerable migrants, Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, sex workers, people in contact with the justice system, victims of modern slavery and other socially excluded groups.

Local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) are non-statutory bodies responsible for local economic development in England. They are business-led partnerships that bring together the private sector, local authorities and academic and voluntary institutions.

https://cheshireandwarrington.com/

https://www.liverpoollep.org/

Local Resilience Forums are multi-agency partnerships made up of representatives from local public services, including the emergency services, local authorities, NHS, the Environment Agency and others. These agencies are known as Category 1 Responders, as defined by the Civil Contingencies Act.

A provider collaborative which brings together providers of mental health, community and learning disability care across Cheshire and Merseyside to work together at scale in ways which benefit patients.

The National Quality Board (NQB) champions the importance of quality and drives system alignment of quality across health and care on behalf of NHS England and Improvement, NHS Digital, the Care Quality Commission, the Office of Health Promotion and Disparities, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, Health Education England, the Department of Health and Social Care, and Healthwatch England.

The NQB provides advice, recommendations and endorsement on matters relating to quality, and acts as a collective to influence, drive and ensure system alignment of quality programmes and initiatives.

Its aim is to support delivery of the Long Term Plan’s ambition for quality in the NHS, while encouraging high quality care for all across all of health, public health and social care. Its current priorities include supporting system transformation and the integration of care and outcomes, understanding and addressing unwarranted variation and inequalities, and supporting learning and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

https://www.england.nhs.uk/ourwork/part-rel/nqb/

The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) will work across the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), the rest of government, the healthcare system, local government and industry to be creative about how we shift our focus towards preventing ill health, in particular in the places and communities where there are the most significant disparities.

As part of DHSC, OHID brings together expert advice, analysis and evidence with policy development and implementation to shape and drive health improvement and equalities priorities for government.

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/office-for-health-improvement-and-disparities/about

NHS England and Improvement is a non-departmental body in England responsible for overseeing NHS Foundation Trusts and NHS Trusts, as well as independent providers that provide NHS-funded care.

NHS Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Care Board will arrange for some of its functions to be delivered, and decisions about NHS funding to be made in the region’s nine borough places – through Place-Based Partnerships.

The ICB will remain accountable for NHS resources deployed at borough place-level. The ICB will set out the role of designated place-based leaders within its governance arrangements.

Health and wellbeing boards (HWBs) will continue to develop the joint strategic needs assessment and joint health and wellbeing strategy, which both the ICP and ICB will give due regard.

The collection of patient data across multiple health information technology systems. This data is then analysed into a single, actionable patient record. Care providers can improve both clinical and financial outcomes using this data.

Primary care is the first point of contact for healthcare for most people. It is mainly provided by GPs (general practitioners), but community pharmacists, opticians, dentists and other community services are also primary healthcare providers.

Provider collaboratives are partnerships that bring together two or more NHS trusts (public providers of NHS services including hospitals and mental health services) to work together at scale to benefit their populations.

This means being taken care of by someone who has particular expertise in whatever problem a patient is having. It’s where most people go when they have a health problem that can’t be dealt with in primary care because it needs more specialised knowledge, skill or equipment than the GP has.

It’s often provided in a hospital. The GP will decide what kind of specialist the patient needs to see and contact them on the patient’s behalf to get them an appointment – this is called a referral.

Secure Data Environment (SDE) is a data storage and access platform, which is being built to uphold the highest standards of privacy and security of NHS health and social care data when used for research and analysis.

Only approved users, with approved projects, are allowed to access and analyse data and only approved outputs can leave the environment. 

Locally our definition of Social Value is:

• the good that we can achieve within our communities, related to environmental, economic and social factors;

• our approach to building capabilities, strengths and assets and enabling people to live a ‘valued and dignified life’;

• an enabler for the growth of ‘Social Innovation’ (SI) and helps to reduce avoidable inequalities – linked to the Marmot Principles;

• a requirement of the public sector as ‘Anchor Organisations’ to use their purchasing power to build capabilities, strengths and assets within our communities, ensuring that Cheshire and Merseyside is a great ‘Place’ to live and work – Corporate Social Responsibility is the response from Suppliers, Business and Industry.

NHS Providers, Local Authorities, private sector and Voluntary, Community, Faith and Social Enterprise sector (VCFSE) organisations across Cheshire and Merseyside have signed up to our Social Value Charter, which was launched on the 1 July 2019. Our Charter describes our local vision and principles for maximising the potential of Social Value across Cheshire and Merseyside.

https://www.cheshireandmerseyside.nhs.uk/about/sustainability/social-value/

Specialised services support people with a range of rare and complex conditions. They often involve treatments provided to patients with rare cancers, genetic disorders or complex medical or surgical conditions. They deliver cutting-edge care and are a catalyst for innovation, supporting pioneering clinical practice in the NHS. For a quick overview of specialised services watch our animation.

https://www.england.nhs.uk/commissioning/spec-services/

System P is a Predictive, Preventative and Precise approach to Population, Patient and Person health outcomes.

The programme is currently being delivered across the nine local authority areas in Cheshire and Merseyside and takes a whole system approach to addressing multiagency, multisector challenges that negatively impact population health.

The nation’s public health body focused on health protection and security. The agency builds on the legacy of Public Health England, NHS Test and Trace and the Joint Biosecurity Centre to help keep the nation safe.

UKHSA is an integral part of the public health system and the national security infrastructure.

There are thousands of voluntary sector organisations working across Cheshire and Merseyside.

Implementing the Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) is a requirement for NHS commissioners and NHS healthcare providers, including independent organisations, through the NHS standard contract. It aims to improve the (equal) access to career opportunities and fair treatment in the workplace among employees from ethnic minority communities.