Rethinking Our Health: co-designing better support for long-term health conditions in Sussex
Introducing Rethinking Our Health – a new way of working with communities to support people living with long-term conditions.
Rethinking Our Health is a new collaboration between Here and The King’s Fund, bringing together communities and organisations across Sussex to explore new ways of supporting people living with multiple long-term conditions.
Together with partners in the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector, primary care, and local government, we’ll be focusing on two neighbourhood test sites:
- Wick in Littlehampton, supported by the Arun Integrated Community Team (ICT), and
- Hangleton & Knoll in Brighton & Hove, supported by the West Brighton & Hove ICT.
Why is this needed?
Long-term conditions (LTCs) are among the most pressing issues in health and social care in the UK. These chronic illnesses require sustained, ongoing management, and an increasing number of people are living with more than one condition.
This rise in multiple long-term conditions is having a serious and growing impact on individuals, families, communities, the economy, and our health and care services.
However, formal healthcare only accounts for around 20 per cent of a person’s health outcomes. The remaining 80 per cent are influenced by social factors, health behaviours and the physical environment. This means we need to look beyond traditional ways of working and rethink how people, communities, and professionals across health and other sectors come together to design solutions.
Supporting the ambitions of the NHS 10-Year Plan
This project directly supports the aims of the new NHS 10-Year Plan, which prioritises prevention, neighbourhood-level care, personalised support, and tackling the root causes of health inequality.
Rethinking Our Health aligns closely with the plan’s ambition to strengthen the role of communities and the voluntary sector in health improvement, and to give people more control over managing their own conditions. It also helps test practical approaches to joined-up, place-based care, delivered through integrated neighbourhood teams.
Who we’re working with
Wick test site partners
Voluntary Action Arun & Chichester, Arun District Council, West Sussex County Council, Arun ICT
West Brighton & Hove test site partners
The Hangleton & Knoll Project, Portslade Health Centre
What we’re aiming to do
People with more than one long-term condition often face a tangled web of barriers to managing their health, not only clinical symptoms, but also housing pressures, transport issues, isolation, work stress, or caring responsibilities.
Rethinking Our Health is about working with communities to design and test new ways of offering support that will:
- be rooted in the community and built around people’s real lives
- be clinically backed and co-designed with local professionals
- recognise and respond to the social and environmental barriers people face
- help prevent the development of additional conditions
Initially, we will focus on supporting people living with osteoarthritis, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, which are often experienced together. We expect pain and mental health to be important factors in this work, although persistent pain will not be included in the project.
What we know
We know that people face a wide range of barriers when it comes to managing their health. These include:
- social factors such as housing, work, transport and caring responsibilities
- the combined impact of multiple conditions
- fragmented services which treat conditions in isolation
- isolation or a lack of local support
- limited knowledge, confidence or skills to manage their health
How we’ll work
The project will unfold over four phases:
- Community engagement (May–June 2025): Listening to local voices and experiences
- Co-design sessions (July 2025): Shaping the new approach together
- Delivery of the new Rethinking Our Health offer (autumn 2025 onwards)
- Evaluation of the impact and process (autumn 2025 onwards)
Our principles
Everything we do will be underpinned by a shared set of values and principles:
- Asset-based and community-led: starting with strengths, not just needs
- Clinically backed, co-delivered: health professionals and communities working together
- Personalised care: support tailored to each person’s life and goals
- Equal weight to social and clinical factors
- Addressing health inequalities head-on
- Trauma-informed ways of working
- Generous leadership and open sharing of what we learn
Stay connected
If you would like to know more or get involved, please contact jo.crease@nhs.net.
We will be sharing our learning and progress as the project develops on our blog.
Also of interest
The Health Builder difference: Redefining patient involvement
At Here, we believe that designing exceptional care means working in true partnership with the people who use our services. In this blog, Health Builder Norman Webster shares how our unique approach puts lived experience at the heart of service design and delivery.
Beyond the Diagnosis: What better care looks like for people with multiple conditions
People living with multiple long-term conditions often experience fragmented care. In this blog, we reflect on The King’s Fund’s latest report and share what we’ve learned about building services that support the whole person, not just a list of diagnoses.
Dementia Action Week 2025: With the Alzheimer’s Society
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