Social Life, in partnership with Ouri Labs, are initiating a research project that strengthens the evidence base for allocating NHS surplus land for community-led housing. We’ve been speaking with community-led housing stakeholders and the NHS Property Services planning team to develop the early stages of this research.
Why are we doing this now?
Both in London and across the UK, there is a lack of cohesive evidence to maximise the health impacts of community led housing developments on residents, neighbours and wider communities. There is also a lack of guidance for commissioners and practitioners who are exploring the potential and scalability of community led housing projects.
Adding to the existing evidence base, we recognise that understanding the social sustainability of community-led housing is a key element in contributing to national public health strategy. This understanding is critical for aligning to the NHS' 10-year plan and its Long-Term Triple Aims which are to improve population health, quality of care, and making efficient use of NHS resources.
These strategies and plans are shaping how the NHS is broadening its approach to care settings to encompass community spaces and creative health interventions, as well as hospital-based provision. In addition, NHS Property Services have launched their Healthy Places programme.
The Healthy Places programme focuses on transforming unused NHS land and buildings into vibrant community assets generating positive health outcomes, such as key worker housing, community facilities, and healthcare space. It recognises that the physical environment plays a critical role in supporting wellbeing and preventing illness.
It is therefore a timely opportunity to look at how NHS land assets could be used for community-led housing development and better serve multiple plans, policy objectives including NHS strategic priorities.
Solution
We have partnered with Ouri Labs with the aim of developing Social Life’s social sustainability framework, in order to identify how to maximise health outcomes through community-led housing.
This research will help to test our assumptions and clarify whether there is an opportunity for NHS Estates to release land for community-led housing development and for this to support the NHS’ 10 year plan and Triple Aims.
This research will focus on three key activities:
1) Evidence generation: We will establish a robust methodology to collect, analyse, and document the health impacts of a range of community-led housing contexts across multiple dimensions: physical health outcomes, physical/mental wellbeing, community resilience indicators and wider determinants of health. Though several research projects have quantified the estimated cost-saving to the NHS of particular housing provisions and the social impact of community-led housing, there is no current precedent for understanding the financial value of community-led housing to NHS services.
2) Cross-sector collaboration: We aim to develop a partnership model between NHS Property Services, local health stakeholders (ICS/ICB), social care services, housing organisations and community led housing groups to share resources and expertise, develop joint evaluation metrics, implement appropriate interventions relating to housing/ community-led urban interventions.
3) NHS Priority integration: We will develop recommendations for incorporating community-led housing into NHS property strategy by identifying the opportunity for surplus land for community led housing development, creating pathways for establishing community-led and health-centred principles for housing developments.
The research will draw on Social Life and OURI Labs’ practical understanding of community-led housing, and our well-established track record of working with agencies to generate measurable community benefits and positive health outcomes.
By documenting and quantifying these impacts, it is the research intention to enable NHS Estates to make evidence-based decisions about land utilisation that optimises community health outcomes and resource efficiency.
The developed framework will support both action and evaluation.
Let’s explore together how community-led development and housing can act as a key part of a preventative health strategy and how it can help to address health inequalities.
If you would like to know more and/or be involved in this longitudinal research project please fill in this form or get in touch with one of our project initiators:
Joel Simpson - joel.simpson@social-life.co
Sem Lee - hello@ouri-labs.com
Photo credit: 12 Church Grove [RUSS] by Paul Downs (https://www.pauldownsphoto.com)
