What it really takes to shift a whole system to prevention

The NHS has long aspired to shift to prevention, yet rising demand, widening inequalities and persistent operational pressures show how difficult this is to achieve. This session will offer a provocative, system‑wide perspective on what a genuine move to prevention could look like - not just within the NHS, but across local government, communities, industry and wider society. Think beyond incremental improvement or programme‑based approaches and consider the radical redesign in incentives, public engagement and system culture required to create healthier lives at scale, tackling inequalities and the wider determinants of health. Moving from theory to practice, the session will spotlight the Prevention Accelerator programme as an example of how systems can get on with what works. Participants will hear how neighbourhood‑level collaboration, community partnership, behavioural insights and systematic delivery of evidence‑based interventions create traction quickly, even in the context of operational pressure and constrained resources.