The alliance of community-led health and wellbeing improvement organisations
Prevention Under Pressure
Scottish Communities for Health and Wellbeing (SCHW) is made up of around 87 community-led health and wellbeing improvement organisations. Together we advocate for community-led approaches to improving health and wellbeing and an ongoing investment in establishing a social model of health and wellbeing across Scotland. SCHW in partnership with the Health and Social Care Alliance and the Scottish Community Development Centre have recently produced and published ‘Prevention Under Pressure’. This report is a product of the outcomes of a survey and face-to-face follow-up workshop with SCHW organisations. The survey and workshop focussed on the changes in relationships between the community, voluntary and social enterprise sector and public sector partners between 2022 and 2025. Both the survey and the workshop revealed significant systemic challenges in relationships with public sector partners, alongside a strong willingness to collaborate to address these challenges. The report describes five important challenges: structural exclusion, rhetoric versus reality, deteriorating relationships, inappropriate referral pathways and limited joint working. Tackling the lessons highlighted in the report provides an opportunity to build effective, strong partnerships between the community, voluntary and social enterprise sector and public sector partners.
The ‘Prevention Under Pressure’ report highlights not only the urgency and direction of reform but also, at this critical time, the significant opportunity to build and deliver stronger, more preventative, community-led health and wellbeing systems across Scotland. The absence of a strong commitment from the community, voluntary and social enterprise sector, in partnership with the public health sector, to resolve the five challenges highlighted in the report means that neither sector will be in a state of readiness to take on, in an effective way, the health, social care and reform strategies proposed by the Scottish Government.
SCHW has always been concerned with the “How?” associated with proposals for major change in the delivery of improved health and wellbeing in Scotland. To help address the “How” question, SCHW produced a detailed “Blueprint for a Healthier Scotland”. Copies of the Blueprint and the Prevention Under Pressure reports will be available at the conference.
The full ‘Prevention Under Pressure’ report and the ‘Blueprint for a Healthier Scotland’ can be accessed through the Scottish Communities for Health and Wellbeing (SCHW) website schw.co.uk
