The MJ Achievement Awards 2024 We're celebrating whole-team approaches to tackling health inequalities at The MJ Achievement Awards 2024. Entries for our sponsored award have now closed. Watch this space for our list of finalists.
About the award
Good health is vital to individual wellbeing but also to building strong and prosperous communities. Local government is well placed to invest in health to help local communities thrive. It can support health outcomes by taking action on the wider determinants of health: things like housing, access to green spaces, and employment.
In recognition of this, the Health Foundation has designed and sponsored an award for The MJ Achievement Awards 2024: ‘A whole-team approach to tackling health inequalities’.
Our award – which closed for entries on Friday 2 February 2024 – invited submissions from local authorities taking innovative approaches to improve health and reduce inequalities. We were looking for teams within councils who have worked alongside public health colleagues, or others, to place improving health at the heart of their work.
It was advised that submissions should be led by teams outside of public health – this may include housing, transport, planning, economic development, children’s services or education. Entries should demonstrate strong leadership within council teams, and demonstrate how this aligns with activity on health inequalities across the whole council alongside providing clear evidence of impact.
Judging is now underway. Watch this space for detail of this year's finalists, and find out the winner at The MJ Awards ceremony on Friday 21 June 2024.
Past involvement
St Helens Metropolitan Borough Council took home our 2023 award for their whole-council approach to bridging the inequalities divide in St Helens.
The judging panel said of the winning team:
‘St Helens presented an ambitious and innovative whole-council approach to tackling health inequalities. The flexibility they showed in responding to community input was impressive and led to their work having greater reach, often in new areas.
‘St Helens drew on both national and local expertise and demonstrated a collaborative working relationship with other council teams and the voluntary sector. They were able to demonstrate positive impact through the cost-of-living crisis and their emphasis to shift the framing of conversations with local residents to focus on positives was commendable.’
Two more teams were highly commended:
- Luton Borough Council: 'Our 2040 town-wide vision, and Luton as a health equity town – embedding the Marmot principles'
- Belfast City Council: 'Leisure Transformation Programme'.
Other finalists were:
- Bury Metropolitan Borough Council: 'LET'S Do It' corporate strategy
- Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council: 'Tackling Health Inequalities through Prevention'
- Westminster City Council: 'Community Health and Wellbeing Worker Initiative'.
Read The MJ’s coverage of the award:
- ‘Celebrating positive action on health’ by Katherine Merrifield and Gwen Nightingale, Assistant Directors for Healthy Lives
- ‘A whole-council approach to tackling inequalities’ by Ruth Du Plessis, Director of Public Health at St Helens Borough Council.
And watch the video below for a few words from our 2023 award winner, St Helens Metropolitan Borough Council:
The Health Foundation first sponsored The MJ Achievement Awards in 2022, marking the 10th anniversary of the decision to move public health into local government.
The award, ‘Place-based approaches to health equity’, invited entries from local authorities that could display a whole place strategy and tangible improvements in creating fair opportunities to improve health and health equity.
The London Borough of Newham won with their project, 'Well Newham: 50 Steps to a Healthier Borough'.
Our judging panel said of the winning team:
'Newham impressed us with its leadership endorsement, community co-production, and multiple stakeholder involvement. It demonstrated a cascaded model of aligned goals and indicators, with practical action and clear accountability throughout. It is manifestly a collective endeavour focused on local wider determinants. The one-year progress report reinforces this sense of momentum, energy, enthusiasm, and sense of flourishing.'
Two more teams were highly commended:
- Newcastle City Council: 'Newcastle Vaccine Inequalities Action'
- North Lanarkshire Council: 'Rainbow Shelter'.
Other finalists were:
- Basildon Council: 'Essex Local Delivery Pilot'
- North Somerset Council: 'North Somerset's Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy'.
Read The MJ’s coverage of the award:
- ‘Putting health equity first’ by Katherine Merrifield and Gwen Nightingale, Assistant Directors for Healthy Lives
- ‘Stepping up for the health of Newham’ by Jason Strelitz, Director of Public Health at the London Borough of Newham.
And watch the video below for a few words from our 2022 award winner, the London Borough of Newham:
Further reading
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