Image: Liverpool Lime Street Station by Gareth Jones
Background
Economies for Healthier Lives (2021–2024) was a collaborative project led by Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and funded by the Health Foundation. Partners included the University of Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool City Region’s six local authorities and public health departments, and Jobcentre Plus.
Together, they aimed to ensure that work to tackle health inequalities across the city region, both existing and planned, is better co-ordinated and that residents with a health condition who are seeking employment are better able to not only find it but also sustain it.
Context
Health-related worklessness has been increasing in the UK since the 2010's and this was exacerbated by the Covid pandemic. Currently, 2.8 million people are out of work due to poor health, with poor mental health and musculoskeletal conditions the most common reasons for this. People with disabilities are almost 30% more likely to be out of work than others. Liverpool City Region is the area with the highest rate of economic inactivity due to health and this is a substantial contributor to its productivity gap when compared to England.
The Health Foundation identified the provision of ‘services that meet people’s health and economic needs together’ as an important area for action at local and regional level and funded Liverpool City Region Economies for Healthier Lives in line with this aim. Research outputs included:
Review of local provision
The University of Liverpool’s Heseltine Institute carried out a review of health-promoting employment support programmes in Liverpool City Region, considering three current programmes in detail: the Work and Health Programme, Households into Work, and Ways to Work. These are programmes that aim to provide more intensive support than mainstream Jobcentre Plus provision, to people who may have multiple and complex issues preventing them from seeking or sustaining employment.
The purpose of the review is to consider the strengths of existing provision and ways it might be improved.
Review of best practice
The University of Liverpool’s Institute of Population Health carried out a systematic review of peer-reviewed and grey literature (local or organisational reports) of what works in the UK to improve employment outcomes for people with disabilities or long-term health conditions, with the aim of providing robust evidence that can be used to inform organisations with responsibility for employment support.
Key findings included consistent evidence from Individual Placement and Support (IPS) intervention studies of better employment outcomes from IPS compared to traditional vocational interventions.
Toolkit
All project partners contributed to the production of a toolkit, collating the lessons learnt from Economies for Healthier Lives in Liverpool City Region and outlining the steps that can be taken by other local or combined authorities looking to enhance public health, increase employment, and improve health and wellbeing through employment support.
Economies for healthier lives toolkit [PDF 0.7MB]
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