Unique Improvements has been commissioned by the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) to develop an online toolkit for use by Local Authorities and their partners in the battle against health inequalities.

In many parts of the country, particularly within larger Authorities areas, the council is the region’s largest workforce. Many of the Council employees – especially those on junior grades live in the region they serve, as such, they and their families mirror the local patterns of ill health and chronic disease.

The toolkit is designed to assist the Councils and their partners to diagnose where they are in relation to health inequalities and workforce health, and enable them to take steps to reduce these issues.

The toolkit has been designed to offer a range of modules covering everything from basic awareness of the issues to tools that allow councils to explore links between workforce health and that of the wider population. It also offers modules that can help councils improve the health of their workforce and reduce sickness and absenteeism.

In addition, the toolkit offers a ‘virtual facilitation’ model to supplement the core tools, the facilitation tool enables users progress through the programme at their own pace.

Participants first encounter a set of diagnostic tools, which then lead them to each of the learning modules.

The toolkit will ultimately be located on the IDeA Knowledge website where it will be accessible free of charge.