The Priorities
Health and Wellbeing
We want to improve the quality of life for everyone in Devon by...
Promoting health and personal wellbeing for all so that people are as healthy as possible.
How Devon is now
There is a gap of up to 18years in life expectancy between different communities in Devon.
One in five people on GP registers in Devon smokes, more than 52,000 adults are recorded on GP registers as clinically obese, and more than 18,000 people in Devon have an alcohol dependency.
Disease prevalence is higher than for England as a whole for a number of conditions including coronary heart disease, hypertension and cancer.
Devon has a higher proportion of older people than the South West as a whole and England. The number of older people will grow by one third in the next 15 years and an estimated 17,000 people will suffer from dementia by 2021.
Just over 2,700 people with a learning disability are recorded with GP registers though the actual number is likely to be significantly higher and the numbers are expected to rise.
There is a need to shift more care from hospital and care homes to care at home or closer to home.
How will we achieve this priority?
By 2018, measurable improvements will have been made in the following areas:
- People who experience a down turn in their health and well being will have been identified earlier and have access to effective prevention services and wide ranging community services and activities.
- The gap that makes people’s well being and life expectancy unequal will have been reduced.
- People will have choice and control to arrange and direct their own care and support services.
- People with disabilities and long term conditions will have access to advice and services that promote independence, make best use of technologies and support them to remain at home.
- All carers will have timely and easy access to information, advice and support.
- People will have opportunities to have a say and influence on all aspects of our work including people who are often overlooked and excluded