People, place, health: constructing a health and care ecosystem for Wales

With 80-90% of good health coming from factors outside of our designated health and care systems, these systems cannot be remote from the rest of our daily lives. Consideration of wider impacts on health must permeate other public planning and decision-making processes – especially at times of great change.

We must act now to radically rethink how we can all take responsibility to maintain our health and well-being and use our health and care services most prudently. Proactively investing in what keeps us all well and disinvesting in what harms us can only be effectively achieved with coordinated and focused input from everyone – those within, and outside of, existing health and care systems, including the people in our communities.

This report explores five steps to create a more effective health and care ecosystem: a system where health and care supports – and is supported by – our places, our communities, our economy, and our environment.