The NW Collaborative Masterclass brought together national and local leaders to explore how we can shift our health and care systems from treating illness to preventing it. The event focused on tackling the root causes of ill health, reducing inequalities, and making prevention a shared priority across sectors.

Sarah Arnold, Senior Policy Lead at The King’s Fund set the scene by exploring what "prevention" really means and how views differ between government and local authorities.

• The challenge: rising numbers of people living with multiple long-term conditions, worsening health outcomes, and stark inequalities between wealthier and poorer communities.
• The financial risk: if current trends continue around demand for services and public spending the NHS will become unsustainable.
• The NHS Long Term Plan is designed to shift the focus from treating sickness to preventing it by tackling key determinants of health. Sarah highlighted the plan’s challenges and opportunities, including accountability, funding, and the need to scale up best practice.

Professor Matthew Ashton, Director of Public Health, Liverpool shared how Cheshire and Merseyside are working as a Marmot Community through their All Together Fairer programme, focusing on reducing health inequalities. Four key pillars drive the work. Major initiatives include, Tackling child poverty and supporting families and All Together Smoke Free, targeting a leading cause of preventable ill health.

He explained how moving towards neighbourhood health offers opportunities for greater impact, however, challenges remain, including workforce capacity, fragmented funding, and the dominance of acute care incentives over prevention.

He concluded with the secrets of success of delivering a successful public health strategy:

• Build strong strategic partnerships.
• Work closely with Directors of Adult Social Services.
• Focus on community priorities and clear ambitions.
• Harness system-wide expertise and passion.
• Always remember: it's about improving people's lives.

National Prevention Toolkit – Simon Williams (Partners in Care & Health) & Darius Ansari (Newton) introduced the National Prevention Toolkit, which provides councils with tools to make prevention an investable decision. The figures support this work. Simon explained that early investment in prevention could save £3.17 for every £1 spent, with potential national savings of £11 billion.

• The barriers to scaling prevention include difficulty proving impact, limited capacity, fragmented funding, and poor-quality data.
• The Future of Prevention programme has created a best practice framework and consistent ways to evidence the benefits of prevention.

Darius described how the online toolkit (futureofprevention.com) supports councils to deliver proactive, sustainable prevention. The next stage will be a multi-council programme, aiming to:

• Drive significant benefits for residents and local finances.
• Scale up neighbourhood-level prevention.
• Build the first large-scale evidence base for proactive prevention.

Key Takeaways

• Prevention is vital to improving health outcomes, reducing inequalities, and easing financial pressure on health and care systems.
• Local and national collaboration is essential to create sustainable, scalable change.
• Strong leadership, community engagement, and investment in early interventions are key to success.

Watch the event: