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The Department of Health and the Local Government Agency have developed these tools and products to help you assess health inequalities within your locality as well as addressing leadership issues in this agenda.

Read about Haringey Libraries health project, the Wye Wood project, Stroud Council's staff health initiative and how Aspley Women's group in Nottinghamshire is helping women beat depression.

The Local Wellbeing project was a unique four-year initiative, running until March 2010, to test practical ways of improving public wellbeing through local authorities and their partners in three very different areas of the UK.

There was a battery of instant analysis in the immediate aftermath of the riots in August, and central government peppered the airwaves with policy responses: evictions for people convicted of rioting, more help for so-called problem families, curfews and a strategy to tackle gang culture.

Improvement

It has been known for some time that men are not good at accessing health services. However, councils and the NHS are working together to design projects to take healthcare out into the community. Bradford Metropolitan Borough Council has run its ‘Health of Men’ initiative since the 1990s.

Fenland District Council has a markedly high population of older residents, who historically have had problems accessing council and partner services. The reason for this is that Fenland is a large rural area covering more than 200 square miles, with 29 small and remote villages.

The Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 specifies that local authorities and Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) produce a Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) of the health and wellbeing of the local community.

Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) remains high on the Government agenda.

With authorities under new pressures to deliver and develop services for children and young people, this resource explains the issues and offers some practical solutions.

An outline of LG Improvement and Development support to councils and their partners in the area of children and young peoples services

The framework builds on and recognises the work that councils have already undertaken under the old ESLG standard, but contains many new features.

This publication written by Matrix and commissioned by the Local Government Association outlines top 10 pillars or tips for developing a successful business for health improvement and wellbeing.

A toolkit to be used to combat obesity.

The Department of Health has launched the Health Inequalities Intervention Tool. It is an online resource, for service commissioners to analyse health gaps and plan high impact interventions. This will help meet public service agreement targets on life expectancy and infant mortality.

The Healthy Communities Programme is undertaking an interim impact assessment to evaluate the difference it has made to participants. Our externally appointed consultants ‘Unique Improvements’, will be contacting stakeholders. Information will be used to develop the programme. For information please contact Hannah Deacon

Imagine a local authority where housing, planning, engineering and regeneration staff routinely assess the health impacts of the policies and projects they are working on, and then do something to address them.

In 2007 the neighbourhood management initiative areas (NMIAs) from West Cumbria commissioned a health impact assessment (HIA).

West Cumbria’s two neighbourhood management initiative areas (NMIAs) commissioned a health impact assessment (HIA) from the School of Applied Social Science at Durham University in 2007. The aims were to: assess the impact of current programmes in health and other areas; make recommendations to enhance future positive impacts on the health of the population

The HIA Gateway is funded by the Department of Health and managed by the West Midlands Public Health Observatory