Community‑led action for better heart, lung and mental health

Westminster City Council’s Healthy Communities Fund (HCF) (2023-2026) and Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea’s Community Public Health Programme (CPHP) (2024-2027) represent two flagship public health investments designed to strengthen the role of voluntary and community organisations in removing barriers to access health services and improve health outcomes for those experiencing the biggest health inequalities.

With investment of over £7.3 million directed to 70 locally rooted voluntary and community sector (VCS) organisations, these programmes are bringing prevention closer to the communities, strengthening prevention and improving public health outcomes for residents by delivering over 115 co-designed weekly activities in areas with greatest need. Organisations are being supported through enhanced capacity building in diabetes management, blood pressure monitoring, smoking cessation, health coaching and trauma-informed practice. This empowers partners to deliver culturally tailored, trusted interventions and enables early identification of preventable conditions.

Designed and delivered with residents and community partners, the model is already improving health literacy, behaviour change, early identification of risks and access to services. These programmes will build a lasting legacy of a stronger, better‑integrated community workforce, delivering tailored, VCS‑led public health services such as HealthWorks.

Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea are diverse and cultural boroughs with a thriving community spirit. However, stark inequalities exist across both boroughs, with life expectancy varying significantly between areas of affluence and deprivation. These inequalities are not random and are rooted in long-standing social disparities. Communities, primarily in North Westminster and North Kensington experience high levels of deprivation, long-term conditions, overcrowded housing, and low trust and acceptance of statutory services.

Our communities have told us what works for them, and the councils recognise that while statutory services offer essential clinical care, health is created in communities and real change often begins far earlier. The VCS hold deep trust and long‑standing relationships, having embedded themselves in local communities through decades of support, presence and lived understanding of residents’ needs. HCF and CPHP were designed to bring health interventions closer to residents and to recognise the pivotal role of our thriving voluntary and community sector.

Westminster’s Healthy Communities Fund (HCF), 2023–26

As part of Westminster's #2035 commitments to reduce health inequalities, public health launched the Healthy Communities Fund in 2023, investing £5 million to support 42 local voluntary and community sector organisations. The primary aim is to strengthen community-led, culturally competent health and wellbeing promotion and interventions, focussed on the residents, cohorts and neighbourhoods who stand to benefit the most.

Through an inclusive grants process, organisations were encouraged to work with the priority communities to design culturally relevant healthy activities across the life-course which acted as a basis for health promotion and intervention.

In its final year, the programme introduced a Healthy Hearts Developmental Opportunity for 14 HCF organisations, enabling enhanced cardiovascular outcomes through innovative and bespoke initiatives delivered in collaboration with primary care and integrated healthy lifestyle services.

As the programme concludes in 2026, a new HealthWorks service will launch, offering trained HCF organisations a timely opportunity to tender for local public health contracts, supported by a tailored supplier‑readiness programme.

Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea’s Community Public Health Programme (CPHP), 2024–27

Learning from the success of HCF, public health launched the £2.3 million Community Public Health Programme in Kensington & Chelsea. CPHP is a more targeted programme, funding ten consortiums comprising 27 VCS organisations, with a deliberate focus on improving heart, lung and mental health outcomes.

A structured four-month co-design period with the participating organisations enabled strong partnerships amongst them who collectively designed the interventions through a series of workshops. By the end of this period, these consortiums were not simply delivery partners, they were co-architects of the programme.

CPHP also strengthens pathways into primary care and commissioned services for adults experiencing the poorest health outcomes, acknowledges the ongoing impact of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, and prioritises delivery in North Kensington where need is greatest.

CPHP’s legacy is a stronger, better‑connected community workforce that supports a healthier borough shaped around local needs.

While adapted to meet local needs, the two programmes align around three common objectives:

1. Reduce health inequalities by managing the risk of preventable long-term health conditions across Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea.
2. Strengthen the capacity, knowledge, skills and reach of VCS organisations, enabling them to lead and deliver preventative health interventions with confidence, credibility and cultural relevance.
3. Embed healthy behaviours through community-driven approaches, ensuring activity and information is relatable, trusted, and reflective of local culture.

The programmes serve as scaffolding, supporting the VCS to become even stronger ‘anchors’ of community wellbeing, particularly for residents who may not readily access statutory services.

Across both boroughs, the two programmes led by 70 community organisations are:

• delivering over 115 weekly activities
• engaging more than 5,700 residents in six months.

Participation remains inclusive, with over half identifying as women, a quarter as men, and the remainder identifying in other ways.

Delivery is prevention focussed with:

• more than 20 organisations offering blood pressure checks
• around 40 groups supporting type 2 diabetes prevention and management,
• several groups delivering culturally tailored stop‑smoking support
• opportunities for residents to take up screening and NHS Health Check opportunities.

Now that I understand what my blood pressure means, I feel more confident to talk to my doctor. Before, I didn’t even know what questions to ask.

-    Programme participant 

Importantly, most organisations are collaborating with health partners and mainstream services, strengthening pathways into care and improving access to preventative support for underserved communities. 

The diversity of funded organisations means interventions now reflect the borough’s cultural and linguistic richness. Activities have become more accessible to groups who are often left behind by traditional health services. Monitoring indicates:

• Increased VCS capability, with many organisations now delivering blood pressure checks, weight/BMI monitoring, diabetes prevention conversations, smoking cessation support through interesting activities such as somatic therapy, safe-space groups, boxing, art therapy, dancing, and more.
• Improved health literacy as a result of delivery by familiar local organisations, reported increased understanding of mental health, healthy eating and label reading, cancer awareness, and screening opportunities.
• Observable behaviour change including increased activity, improved stamina and confidence, healthier food choices, weight reduction, better management of long‑term conditions, more walking and swimming, earlier help‑seeking, greater uptake of screenings, and reduced smoking.
• Improved collaboration between VCS, council, public health and primary care, with clearer referral routes.
• Strengthened local confidence and knowledge around heart, lung and mental health outcomes.
• Better penetration into North Kensington and North Westminster where deprivation and poor health outcomes are most concentrated.
• Increased resident participation in early intervention activities, reflecting a shift toward prevention rather than crisis response.

The programmes are enabling local groups to grow their own tailored health initiatives rooted in community identity. Consortiums have created a more resilient health ecosystem.

Effective health equity work also requires acknowledging structural inequality: targeted investment should follow need, openly addressing deprivation, structural racism and the unequal impacts of the climate crisis.

Emerging insights point to the importance of time, trust, and truly community-led design. The co-design phase in RBKC has demonstrated that investing early in collaborative engagement builds sustained partnerships, clearer expectations, stronger delivery pathways and, critically, community agency. Capacity building within the VCS is not a by-product but a core outcome; when organisations gain skills, structure and confidence, the impact extends far beyond the life of a single programme.

Trust itself functions as a public health intervention. Working through community-rooted organisations in familiar spaces and embedding health promotion into everyday activities significantly strengthens residents’ ability to participate and take action.

For other local authorities, these lessons translate into clear recommendations:

• Invest early in collaborative community engagement to build relationships and shared understanding.
• Prioritise genuine codesign with communities, ensuring ownership, sustainability and relevance.
• Adopt flexible delivery models; consortia, hybrids and integrated delivery, based on what best fits local culture and context.
• Share impact to demonstrate that informal VCS approaches can generate formal, measurable outcomes.
• Plan for the long term, as today’s capacity building strengthens tomorrow’s community infrastructure.

These programmes demonstrate that when public health strategy meets community driven insight, and partnerships across system reduce structural barriers, meaningful change becomes possible. The work underway is already reshaping pathways into prevention, improving trust, and nurturing healthier, more resilient neighbourhoods.