October Forum on 'Healthy Cities'
As regeneration of our UK cities moves forward, there is growing awareness of the importance of designing healthier environments to encourage physical and mental well-being.
Who influences the debate most in creating healthy cities? Are healthy cities always the most economically successful? How can investors and developers work towards designs that promote good health in offices, homes, schools, public buildings and on the high street? Are plans to ‘green our cities’ being drawn up fast enough and can a more collaborative approach between state and the private sector help?
In October, Future Cities Forum is holding a debate at Siemens Crystal Building in Royal Victoria Docks, London, on these issues which are currently of concern to city councils, health trusts, medical leaders, public realm experts, developers, investors and technology companies.
Our previous work in this area has included a facilitation of Nuffield Health’s forum in The Gherkin, enabling an in-depth look at the ability of corporate business to change employees’ attitudes to exercise, thereby putting a programme of well-being into the workplace and taking the pressure off the NHS.
Following this at the Royal Society of Medicine we invited the chief medical officers from Moorfields NHS Trust, Aviva and Benenden Health Care to join health experts and academics from Mercer, Warwick Business School and City University, London, to debate the issues that threaten our health as a nation and suggest behavioural change that might help.
This June, the Royal College of Physicians talked at our forum about the creation of its new northern head-quarters in Liverpool. The city is now attracting major investment from ground-breaking science and medical companies such as Proton Partners International, to create a new 'health campus' called Knowledge Quarter Liverpool.
How will this investment change the health provision in the city and will it further benefit the UK as a whole? Watch RCP Deputy Chief Executive Clive Constable talk about collaboration at our recent forum: