Live Well

GM Live Well is Greater Manchester’s commitment to everyday support in every neighbourhood.

Live Well is bringing about a radical shift in how we deliver public services and collaborate with people and communities to reduce health, social and economic inequalities.

The Mayor’s Manifesto goal is for ‘everyone in every community to have daily access to support and advice to improve their physical and mental health and socio-economic status’.

You cannot reduce these inequalities and achieve this goal without movement, physical activity, and sport. Everyone delivering the GM Moving in Action strategy has a role to play.

Through the GM Moving movement for movement, partners cultivate a strong and trusted network of community and leisure leaders, deliverers and groups who shape services and support to enable people and communities to live healthier, happier lives through movement, physical activity, and sport.

Community-led movement, physical activity, and sport are fundamental to everyone in Greater Manchester being able to Live Well.

Together we share power and resources that support people to design movement back into daily life and connect them into more structured activity in local facilities, schools, parks, Live Well centres, community centres, faith centres and open spaces.  

This supports active lives for all and people’s ability to Live Well from early years to older age.

Live Well in Action: Hyde

In Tameside, for example, Healthy Hyde is a Primary Care Network improving the health and wellbeing of the most deprived 10% of its local population through a front door to advice and support and early prevention.

Movement and physical activity are core to the support they provide to the homeless population, refugees, asylum seekers, food bank users, children struggling in schools, and parents with young children.

They bring together the PCN with housing organisations, domestic violence organisations, voluntary and community groups, the local council, housing shelters and statutory services.

Over time they have adapted their offer to fit their communities’ needs and support them to Live Well.

Live Well in Action: Greater Manchester

GM Live Well is a city-region-wide commitment to ensuring people get the support they need, at the right time, in the right place through:

• A network of welcoming and empowering Live Well centres and spaces offering integrated financial, employment, well-being, health and social support as well as social connection for residents. These will be accessible from any neighbourhood and through our health service.
• Equal, connected and consistent support offers - whether for housing related issues, money advice, employment support, getting connected to community activities or other types of support. They will bring together the best of our public services and be crowded with the local VCSFE groups that already know and serve their local communities so well.
• A ‘Live Well workforce’ with a shared ethos and ability to collectively pull support around individuals, families and communities in a way that responds to their unique needs and builds on strengths.
• Moving from a fragmented welfare system to a proactive, preventative, community-led model - that instead of waiting for people to fall into crisis, will invest in prevention, early intervention and community-led health, care and support.

Contributions of GM Moving in Action to the Live Well four key components:

• Live Well centres and spaces: Movement and physical activity brings people together and helps develop social connections. Both are vital to the many aims of these spaces. As trusted, community-led centres and spaces – accessible via active travel - physical activity is built in as part of their welcoming offer as well as utilising the many green spaces available across neighbourhoods to create joy.
• Consistent support offers: We all have a role to play in connecting and supporting organisations so they can create full and consistent physical activity and movement offers. We’re working to ensure every place and workforce has easy access to physical activity opportunities through leisure, healthcare settings, and VCSFE sectors.
• VCSFE sectors: Many movement and physical activity offers are co-designed, community led and supported by volunteers. We support them to deliver what matters to people, with communities at the heart, including via the GM Walking and Wheeling Fund.
• Prevention: A more active nation is healthier and happier. Movement, physical activity and sport can deliver on prevention by reducing the numbers of people who require the health care and welfare systems.

Delivering on our contributions to Live Well

We know that movement and physical activity is fundamental to reducing inequalities and ensuring that everyone can Live Well.

The whole-system approach, which we use, can deliver a radical shift in how public services are delivered and relies on collaboration with people and communities.

Our Pointers for Leadership Practice is our guide for how to work in this way, something we’ve done for a number of years through our Place Partners work.

We believe growing the frequency of these behaviours will shift the Enablers for Change – the conditions needed in a place to create system, culture, and behaviour change. More on this here.