Dr Kostas Kollydas summarises key discussions and takeaways from a Liverpool City Region Economies for Healthier Lives Showcase Event.
Overview
An Economies for Healthier Lives Showcase Event occurred on 27 March 2025 in Liverpool. The event was organised by the Heseltine Institute for Public Policy, Practice and Place and funded by the Health Foundation. It focused on how local economic and health policies can work better together to improve outcomes for people across the Liverpool City Region and in other local areas.
Sue Jarvis (Co-Director, Heseltine Institute) opened the event with a welcome and overview of the Health Foundation’s Economies for Healthier Lives programme, followed by two presentations from John White (Programme Manager, Economies for Healthier Lives, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority) and Rob Tabb (Programme Lead, Public Service Innovation, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority). The panel discussion that followed, chaired by Sue Jarvis, featured Professor Anne Green (Co-Director, City-REDI, University of Birmingham), Tracy Fishwick OBE (Managing Director, Transform Lives Company), Sharlene McGee (Policy Manager, Health Foundation), and Dr Philip McHale (Department of Public Health and Policy, University of Liverpool).
Main issues raised
The Liverpool City Region has some of the highest rates of economic inactivity linked to poor health. This long-standing issue has worsened by fragmented services, policy silos, and systems that do not always reflect the complexity of people’s lives. Part of the discussion was about recognising that life is not linear: people move in and out of work, may struggle with long-term health conditions, or may care for others. Nevertheless, support systems are often rigid and based on standard processes and narrow targets.
Health-related barriers to work are rarely straightforward. People often face multiple overlapping challenges in other policy domains – housing, transport, mental health, digital exclusion, and more. But public services tend to work in isolation, offering support in pieces rather than as a whole. Therefore, the speakers called for a transition from siloed, process-driven systems to more flexible, locally co-produced models. This transition should be backed by innovative use of data, test-and-learn approaches, and community-led innovation.
Public services collect huge amounts of information. There are ways to use this data more safely and smartly to understand what works and who is being left out. Doing this well requires local leadership and clear oversight (with attention to appropriate data governance), not more layers of bureaucracy. There was also a discussion about ongoing efforts to link NHS data from primary care, secondary care, and medical services with local employment support programmes. This would likely help better understand and improve health and employment outcomes.
The event highlighted the need for small, collaborative changes across sectors to reduce duplication and support people with health conditions into sustainable employment. Better awareness of everyday issues like housing and transport can make a big difference to health. It was emphasised that helping people is not just about moving individuals into work. Support programmes should also ensure that individuals find and progress into good employment that aligns with their personal circumstances. It is also important to distinguish between support that requires face-to-face interaction and what can be delivered online, particularly in the context of limited resources. Of course, employers also play a crucial role in people securing employment, so policy needs to take account of labour demand as well as supply.
The significance of place-based support came through clearly. Services that are based in the communities they aim to support appear to build trust and respond more directly to people’s needs. An example illustrating this is the new Jobs Plus project in Toxteth, which represents a hyper-local model of community-led employment support.
The event also looked ahead. There is a push to rethink how public services are funded, especially for those with more complex requirements. Services often prioritise easier wins to meet performance goals. However, new models of investment and delivery may be needed – ones that reward prevention and focus on outcomes, not just inputs, processes, and outputs.
Key takeaways
- Health and economic policies should be integrated for long-term impact.
- Community-based, personalised support may be more effective than top-down programmes.
- Data should effectively inform decisions, not sit in silos.
- Devolution gives local areas more tools – but only if used boldly and inclusively.
- Reform needs new thinking on funding, leadership and trust.
Better outcomes will not come from doing more of the same. Lasting change often starts by designing services that match the realities of people’s lives and by trusting local places to lead that change.
This blog was written by Dr Kostas Kollydas, Research Fellow, City-REDI, University of Birmingham.
Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this analysis post are those of the author and not necessarily those of City-REDI or the University of Birmingham.