Dunn, Nicholas Simon and Coulton, Claire (2016) Future of health and healthcare provision in cities. [Report]
gs_16_15_future_of_cities_health_healthcare_provision.pdf
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Abstract
This paper is concerned with the future of health and healthcare provision in cities in the UK. The primary data was collected at a facilitated workshop held at the Academy of Medical Sciences in September 2015. The workshop was designed to guide participants through a series of exercises in order to explore what the current, near future and far future trends in health and healthcare provision are likely to be for cities. The paper is organised into six sections. First, we describe the importance of understanding health and healthcare provision within cities and the intrinsic relationship between people and their built environment with regard both of these topics. Second, we examine the significant transformations within the sector of health and healthcare provision over the last fifty years. Third, we explore potential worst case scenarios for the future of such provision in cities. Fourth, we identify four possible future cities for healthy cities and effective healthcare provision. Fifth, we establish which policy developments would need to be designed and prioritised to facilitate delivery of these future cities. In conclusion, we establish a synthesis of the prevalent patterns and emergent relationships of themes raised during the workshop in order to draw together our findings and further understand how health and healthcare provision may impact the future of cities.