About the Public Health Team

​The City of London Health and Wellbeing Board aims to align the City's approach to the NHS Outcomes Framework, the Adult Social Care Outcomes Framework and the Public Health Outcomes Framework through improving the integration of services, particularly between the NHS and local authority.

We want the City to be more than just a safe place. We would like to positively influence the health of everyone who lives and works in the City, enabling them to live healthily, preventing ill health developing, and promoting strong and empowered groups of individuals who are motivated to drive positive change within their communities and businesses.

We know what it takes for people to live healthily. Workers and residents can take their own steps to improve health, and we know that big improvements in health can result from the following:

• Not smoking or breathing others' smoke.
• Eating a healthy diet.
• Being physically active.
• Achieving and maintaining a healthy weight .
• Moderating alcohol intake.
• Preventing harmful levels of sun exposure.
• Practicing safer sex.
• Attending cancer screening.
• Being safe on the roads.
• Managing stress.

However, we also know that health and wellbeing is bigger than just asking individuals to take steps to improve their own health: we also need to ensure that no-one is disproportionately disadvantaged by their circumstances and environment, preventing them from living as healthily as they might like to.

If we are to improve the health of the whole community, rather than just those who find it easy to adopt healthy behaviours, we need to look at the broader context of people's lives: their income and education; their friends and social networks; where they live; the air they breathe; the beliefs they have about their own health and their ability to make changes; and the individual biological factors that may influence their health.

The Health and Wellbeing Board involves representation from the following partners:

• Elected members of the City of London Corporation.
• Officers of the City of London Corporation, including the Director of Community and Children's Services, the Director of Environmental Health and Public Protection and the Assistant Town Clerk.
• The Director of Public Health for City and Hackney.
• City and Hackney Clinical Commissioning Group
• City of London Healthwatch
• City of London Police

The aim of the Health and Wellbeing Strategy is to jointly agree what the greatest issues are for the local community based on evidence in Joint Strategic Needs Assessments (JSNAs), what can be done to address them, and what outcomes we want to achieve.

We want this strategy to encourage services, organisations and individuals to work together to:

• prevent where we can
• intervene early when problems do develop
• take steps to reduce the harms arising from behaviours or actions that we cannot prevent.​​

The strategy sets out the Health and Wellbeing Board's commitment to improving the health of City residents, workers and rough sleeps. The priorities are:

1. Good mental health for all
2. A healthy urban environment
3. Effective health and social care integration
4. Children have the best start in life
5. Promoting healthy behaviours

The City of London Corporation ensures that suitably qualified and CQC registered open access sexual health services are available to residents in the City.

We do this by negotiating terms and conditions for these services with local providers based within The City and across London, to provide the following:

Contraception

• the giving of advice on contraception
• the medical examination of persons seeking advice on contraception
• the treatment of such persons and
• the supply of contraceptive substances and appliances.

Treatment of sexually transmitted infections

• preventing the spread of sexually transmitted infections
• treating, testing and caring for people with such infections and
• notifying sexual partners of people with such infections.

Due to the open access nature of sexual health services, residents may choose to use other providers who have not established terms and conditions with the City of London.

These out of area providers are not directly commissioned by the City and there is currently only an agreement for the cross charging for Genito-Urinary Medicine (GUM) services.

Everyone is entitled to sign up to a GP. You do not need ID, address or proof of residency. City and Hackney practices have signed up to the Safer Surgeries initiative by Doctors of the World, which emphasises all these points.

We want to encourage everyone to register with a GP because that is the best way to ensure people are able to access the healthcare and support they need. People can register online or ask someone to do it on their behalf. You need to provide your name, date of birth and a telephone number, but you do not need to provide an address or NHS number in order to register.