In the context of high levels of housing need, including the use of temporary accommodation, the Director of Public Health’s annual report 2019/20 made several recommendations intended to improve the population’s health through spatial planning and housing, which included collaboration across six councils on local plan development, and with the NHS and voluntary and community sector to integrate the planning and delivery of care.
The pandemic followed shortly after. The public health team worked with housing colleagues during this period, keeping people experiencing homelessness safe, and enabling their health and wider needs to be met. This included developing support to enable people to access skills development, apprenticeships and work and providing outreach dental care.
Following the pandemic there was an appetite to put partnership arrangements on a more sustainable footing, and for these to reflect the wide range of housing-related issues (from homelessness and housing supply to housing standards and climate change) and to make the most of opportunities from joint working in East Sussex.
It was agreed to develop the Housing Partnership Strategy to guide the work of the partnership. The main aims of the strategy development process were to:
- Set a medium- and long-term vision for the development of housing services in East Sussex
- Provide a framework for cross sector working
- Set out how jointly delivered projects, such as the programme for people experiencing rough sleeping and work to end fuel poverty, contribute to the overall vision
- Support partners to make the best use of capacity, expertise and resources.
The strategy was developed over a 12-month period, beginning with updating the evidence base from the earlier Director of Public Health annual report, and forming a baseline of key indicators to guide the priority setting process.
A series of themed workshops were held with local partners to explore national examples of good practice. This included involvement from the Regulator of Social Housing in the role of local partnerships to support housing providers meet the new requirements and opportunities to promote health through new housing developments. Specialist groups were also formed focusing on each of the emerging priorities, responsible for developing key areas of work and leading implementation of the strategy priorities.
The partnership has agreed a shared vision for its work:
“Healthy, safe and affordable homes for all. With a priority on accelerating housing delivery and associated infrastructure, to help prevent homelessness and end rough sleeping. For the partnership to drive innovation, through strong links to our communities, enabling partners to achieve more than they could alone.”
The partnership strategy priorities are:
- Preventing homelessness and ending rough sleeping – with a focus on identifying and supporting people at risk of homelessness as early as possible, and reducing our use of the costliest forms of temporary accommodation.
- Working together to reduce health inequalities – continuing our work to provide multi-disciplinary support for people with multiple compound needs. Ensuring housing is part of new community-based models in health and care.
- Improving housing management and standards – supporting housing providers to meet the new consumer standards for social housing.
- Delivering the homes we need – increasing the supply of new housing and making the best use of our existing stock by bringing empty homes back into use.
- Sustainable homes – developing a partnership strategy to upgrade homes of all tenures to improve their energy performance and continuing our work to reduce fuel poverty.
Private rented homes – working to improve standards across the private rented sector and access to housing.
Strategic themes underpin all of the priorities to reflect where there is felt to be the greatest opportunity to enable ‘health in housing’, through the partnership:
- Enabling collaboration across sectors, regionally, county-wide and at place level
- Evidence based decision making, ensuring that data, intelligence and lived experience informs decision making
- Developing workforce capacity and capability to deliver strategic priorities and embed consideration to the population’s health.
The draft strategy was published for public engagement over summer 2025 and feedback has been used to refine the draft priorities. The final version of the strategy was endorsed by each of the local housing authorities and the lead member for adult social care in December 2025. The partnership board and specialist groups will develop an annual implementation plan.
East Sussex is part of the Devolution Priority Programme. The partnership is keen to provide consistency during the devolution and re-organisation process, recognising the strength of our existing partnership work and continuing to strengthen cross sector collaboration. The partnership is also keen that the vision and priorities which stakeholders have developed through the strategy development process shape how housing services will be structured and delivered in the future.
The Partnership Board provides oversight for the strategy, and there is a strong reporting line to the East Sussex Health and Wellbeing Shared Delivery Plan; the latter has a housing workstream and the Board is collectively responsible for delivering this. This workstream has initially focused on involving health and care partners in strategy development but has also focused on better understanding the impacts of housing pressures on local health services, for example the rising use of temporary accommodation. This has enabled a contribution from housing partners in the development of the new community-based models in health and care and work is planned to develop a new hospital discharge protocol.
Relationships have been key to the development of the partnership and strategy:
- They have been built on existing partnership working and networks, maintaining relationships and building momentum
- Senior management support from each of the five local housing authorities has enabled ‘buy-in’
- Working groups focussing on the six strategic priorities have enabled people from different professions, interests and sectors to contribute appropriately.
The development of the East Sussex strategy alongside the development of local authority strategies has enabled co-production and consideration to who is responsible for what and it has ensured that what matters to local communities is reflected in the East Sussex strategy.
The Partnership’s vision recognises the wide number of housing issues and their impact on health and wellbeing, and the value of collaboration, including with communities. Together these are felt a strong foundation for accountability going forward.
To measure the progress and impact of the strategy’s implementation on health inequalities, the Partnership are developing key indicators and revisiting the data gathered through the Director of Public Health’s report. Indicators include the number of people sleeping rough, delays to hospital discharge linked to housing and housing outcomes for people referred from health settings, admissions to hospital for people who are homeless or insecurely housed, percentage of people with multiple compound needs achieving positive outcomes across at least 3 domains (housing, health, criminal justice, substance use) at 12 months. There will also be an annual baseline assessment against the NICE standard for integration of health and social care for people experiencing homelessness.
Contact Michael Courts, [email protected].