North Ayrshire is revolutionising community health with a whole systems approach to health and wellbeing as Malcolm McPhail explains

Helping people be physically active and encouraging them to make their leisure time more active have long been recognised as doors to better health.

Here at KA Leisure, a charitable trust in North Ayrshire, Scotland, we’re old hands at it, with programmes running across a range of venues that are managed and staffed by our teams.

We’re proud of the growth and impact achieved by our organisation since its inception in 2000, but now it’s time to take another look at KA Leisure, as it’s blazing a new trail.

A new alliance
The recently-formed North Ayrshire Wellbeing Alliance provides a multi-level leadership body for the development and delivery of the Local Outcome Improvement Plan created by the North Ayrshire Community Planning Partnership. The plan has identified priority areas for us to focus on, including work and wellbeing.

The vision is to take wellbeing further than before, including and going beyond areas traditionally associated with health, helping to positively influence some of the underlying determinants of wellbeing.

It’s a future-oriented, optimistic approach that works across boundaries and not only accepts but also embraces the fact that things aren’t always perfect, recognising that everyone brings value to the table in terms of experience, expertise, challenges, ambition and philosophy.

The true value of this initiative, however, will be in supporting collaboration between the very wide range of existing organisations, from the huge – such as the National Health Service (NHS) – through to micro-community organisations that emphasise the importance and contribution of Third Sector.

KA Leisure is honoured to have been asked to lead this initiative on the wellbeing front, due to our infrastructure and venue portfolio, our track record in scaling services and developing hubs that co-locate services and our ability to take a holistic and creative approach while measuring and celebrating impact.

Experts agree
Elaine Young, head of health improvement at KA Leisure, as well as assistant director of public health for NHS Ayrshire and Arran says: “Wellbeing is a priority within the North Ayrshire Community Planning Local Outcome Improvement Plan.

“As such, community planning partners have pledged to work collaboratively to improve population wellbeing in North Ayrshire. This ‘whole system approach’ is being led by KA Leisure and planning is underway to ensure that prevention, early intervention and addressing inequalities are key to all the activity.

“Wellbeing is everyone’s business, whether you’re a police officer, fire officer, social worker or health worker,” she says. “There’s no ‘wrong door’ when it comes to improving population health.”

Health and wellbeing consultant, Dr Tim Anstiss – who’s collaborating with the KA Leisure team – says: “When the NHS was first established in 1948, the founders of the organisation thought that once the backlog of ill-health had been detected and treated, the NHS would evolve into a true health system.

“That never happened – it remains an underfunded ‘national treatment service’ and with the rise in the number of people with one or more long-term conditions this will not change,” says Anstiss.

“How do we evolve a true health system, helping people stay healthy and well, and reducing the pressure on the NHS?,” he asks. “It's only going to happen through system leadership – bringing together a range of people and organisations around an inspiring shared vision, challenging current processes and enabling people to act on the vision by working together to create the right conditions for health and wellbeing to emerge."

The challenges outlined
North Ayrshire nestles on the West coast of Scotland and has a diversity of landscapes, cultures and populations. It includes towns small and large, villages, swathes of rural land and isolated communities, coastal areas and two islands. It’s also an area full of natural riches, but at the same time much deprivation and inequality, for example, child poverty – at 29 per cent – is the second highest in Scotland.

The challenges to improving wellbeing for people making their lives in North Ayrshire are clear, but so too are the opportunities. Our first steps took the form of a series of co-designed engagement activities with partners, to gather insight, ideas, feedback, comments. Thoughts were captured, refined and polished and became the principles, themes and operational recommendations for the drive forward towards better outcomes.

These principles and themes provide a clear, flexible framework and pathway, leaving space for creativity and for the growth of a movement.

David Hammond, executive director (communities and housing) at North Ayrshire Council says: “Now more than ever, our financial climate necessitates innovation and boldness. North Ayrshire’s Health and Wellbeing Alliance presents a unique opportunity to reimagine our approaches and implement creative solutions that deliver on our vision of 'North Ayrshire – Fair for all’.

“This is our opportunity to think radically and act transformatively, capitalising on the abundance of opportunities,” says Hammond. “We need to harness our collective strength and by embracing co-production and co-location, unlock potential to ensure we improve the health and wellbeing of our communities. I’m excited for the future and what we can achieve together.”

A new approach
By unlocking the potential of partners, KA Leisure is curating a new approach to protecting and improving the wellbeing of communities. We believe it’s daring and radical, bringing together people, places, practice and partnerships, recognising the value of expertise, of co-design, of co-production and that nobody has a monopoly on wisdom.
Going forward this approach will be about thinking and doing differently, supporting organisations to work collaboratively in an age where funding has become more of a challenge. On the ground it must be agile and responsive while allowing for experimentation to help us learn what works.

It will foster engagement and connection with the ‘hard-to-connect-with’ and recognise that funding – of programmes and deliverers – needs to be flexible and longer-term, so there are no cliff edges when it comes to wellbeing programmes and initiatives.

Ultimately, we’re building a wellbeing culture and ecosystem that puts people first and is inclusive and accessible to all.

Creating the North Ayrshire Wellbeing Alliance is a big and exciting job, so it’s essential we track and measure progress. To do so, we’ve created a partnership with the University of the West of Scotland, engaging several academics to help in North Ayrshire’s journey to improved wellbeing for all.

A spokesperson for the university said, “We’re excited to provide a comprehensive evaluation programme for North Ayrshire’s groundbreaking Health and Wellbeing Alliance. This initiative leads the way in transformative community health efforts, and we are eager to contribute our expertise to measure its successes."

Focusing on the journey
So, what does this mean for the people and organisations of North Ayrshire who will both engage with and benefit from the work of the Alliance? First and foremost, people with lived experience are helping provide both the head and the heart, shaping practical solutions and enabling us to effectively place decision making responsibility.

Listening to consumers, we’ve found resistance to the idea of ‘outcomes’ that drives so much of current policy and many people have told us they prefer instead to use the metaphor of a journey.

For KA Leisure, the partnership means creating the right conditions for organisations to maximise funding opportunities and identifying learning needs, so we can create related opportunities.

It will also entail building a succession plan and protecting the future, as well as developing networks by supporting events and opportunities for connection and building a practice model that’s both sustainable and agile.

Amazing things are already happening across North Ayrshire and if we share resources, the whole becomes bigger than the sum of the parts and surprising things emerge, such as connections, compassion and meaningful wellbeing roles for both professional staff and volunteers, alongside an understanding that trauma is a barrier to wellbeing for many.

The ultimate dream
Our dream is that all individuals and families in North Ayrshire will have easy access to wellbeing hubs – small, large, close or a little further away – where they can move their bodies, engage their minds, have a cup of tea and a chat, allow the kids to play with others in an environment that safe and stimulating, borrow a book, pick up some information on an event, or connect with health or wellbeing resources that are tailored to their needs.

Some doors you have to push. Some you have to pull. Some have been hidden and some appear where there wasn’t one before. But behind each one is an opportunity. There truly is no wrong door.

We’re proud to be leading the development of North Ayrshire’s Health and Wellbeing Alliance. KA Leisure’s innovative and inclusive wellbeing programmes, which blend health and leisure, are a testament to our commitment to enhancing community wellbeing.

With a track record of working collaboratively with partners, we’re ready to support developments that will uplift the lives of residents. The formation of the North Ayrshire Wellbeing Alliance is a strategic move towards this goal, promising to bolster the wellbeing of our communities and fortify the efforts of both local and national organisations.

Malcolm McPhail is CEO of KA Leisure and chair of the North Ayrshire Health and Wellbeing Alliance