Are you Interested in making more effective use of your CSR strategy and aligning this to the Sustainable Development Goals through supporting local and global health in Plymouth?
As UK and global populations age and suffer preventable long term conditions, the economic viability of businesses will come into increasing focus because their workforce is drawn from these populations. Medical expenditure, absenteeism, loss of skills through disability and death, and reduced productivity will increasingly challenge businesses. At the same time, businesses are increasingly operating in the context of wider political, environmental, social and technological challenges, not least those presented by COVID, global inequalities, climate change and loss of trust in politics and governments. These challenges and opportunities call for radically new ways of collaboration.
Accordingly, the South West Global Health Collaborative (GHC), which exists to improve local and global health, is interested in working more collaboratively with local businesses in Plymouth who want to demonstrate and/or strengthen their corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) credentials. (For an explanation of ESG see – here)
Businesses do not have to be health-related. The Sustainable Development Goals highlight how every single sector has a role in ensuring that economic growth is promoted without compromising equity and fairness. That’s why we want to work with every business in the city who recognises their role in this and wants to fulfil it
Established at the University of Plymouth in 2016 alongside a Masters course in Global Health, the Collaborative brings together extensive experience and expertise amongst local health workers who are all engaged in international health partnerships. The government has now pulled some international health funding that has affected several new projects, but this could also present an opportunity for health and business to work more closely together, taking a more visible leadership role in this agenda.
The GHC ethos is that
- “Health is interdependent and interconnected – it is no longer possible to separate health issues in the UK from health issues abroad….” – All Party Parliamentary Group in Global Health
- ‘Education must be globalised for all NHS staff’…. who ‘must deliver effective care to multicultural communities with diverse needs’ and ‘must understand the effects of globalisation on health and health systems.’ – Health Education England
- Health is determined by problems, issues and concerns that transcend national boundaries,” and are thus beyond the capacity of individual countries to address through domestic institutions – Public Health England GH strategy 2014-2019/ 2008 and UK Government ‘Health is Global’ Strategy
- Almost every health service problem has been solved at some scale somewhere. Health workforce crisis, patient empowerment, etc – and often by health services developed under more austere conditions.
- The reciprocal benefits of working together and sharing innovation globally are well recognised at NHS health worker, but also whole health system, level.
There are a number of planned new projects underway in the collaborative:
- Plymouth and Uganda working together on building community health worker roles and empowering these workers and their communities to collect own data and prioritise own health needs through geospatial mapping technology
- Paramedicine partnership with an NGO in Nepal on first responder services
- Midwifery partnership with community midwifery services in rural Ethiopia
There are many existing other global partnerships /projects with opportunities for additional collaboration – these can be found at:
https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/research/global-health-collaborative/projects
Please contact the leads for the GHC tara.harrop@plymouth.ac.uk / lucy.obolensky@plymouth.ac.uk if you would like to explore collaborating with us on any global and local health projects.
