In the past year community-centred approaches have become more embedded in public health services and in health and social care. The new NICE guidelines will help to build on this progress, providing a clear mandate for collaboration with communities to plan, design, develop, deliver and evaluate public health, using the PHE guide as a framework for developing options in practice.

Good self care support services provide benefits to patients and carers and offers benefits in demand and cost management to health economies.Self care can extend from making lifestyle choices like eating a healthy diet through to administering prescribed medication or using learned techniques to take care of symptoms. But Self care is under used and self care support is often remains under commissioned.

NHS England requires every area to produce a Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STP) as part of the NHS Five Year Forward View . This presents a great opportunity for local infrastructure. STPs are local blueprints that every part of the country will need to produce for “accelerating its implementation of the Forward View”  STPs may give you a new opportunity to develop your relationship with the partners in your local health and care system (as NHS England calls them) – as they will want to show they are engaging with the voluntary sector.

Race Equality Foundation, in partnership with the LGBT Foundation, Disability Rights UK, and Men’s Health Forum have launched the Equality Delivery System for the NHS (EDS2): Guide to Engagement with the Local Voluntary Sector, commissioned by NHS England.