Bicester Healthy New Town

NHS England Chief Executive, Simon Stevens, announced plans on 1 March 2016 to create ten NHS-supported ‘healthy new towns’ across the country. One of these sites includes Bicester that will form part of NHS England’s Healthy New Town programme, supported by Public Health England (PHE).

The Bicester bid is a collaboration of over 20 local organisations led by Cherwell District Council and including North West Bicester lead developer A2Dominion, Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group, the Oxford Academic Health Science Network, the University of Oxford and Oxford Brookes University, as well as healthcare providers and researchers.

The Bicester bid was secured through the innovative approach being undertaken at Elmsbrook, North West Bicester to design-in health from the outset and create a place where sustainable and healthy living becomes the norm. It will provide greater opportunities to assess and share the health and well-being benefits of living in an exemplary development and test new ways of delivering health services including patient-activated self-care, all of which can be applied to Bicester’s wider 13,000 home strategic growth.

For those needing healthcare, the Bicester Healthy Town Partnership will enable new integrated service models to be developed which will include patient-activated technology. This will complement the digital tablets provided to every household at Elmsbrook for live travel, home energy and community information.

Some of the greatest health challenges – including obesity, mental health, physical inactivity and an ageing population – can all be influenced by the quality of our built and natural environment. The sympathetic design of spaces and places is critical to promote good health.

The Bicester Healthy Town, Healthy Lives concept will provide greater opportunity to assess and share the health and wellbeing benefits arising from North West Bicester to apply best practice to wider growth in the town that will focus on ill-health prevention by future proofing new communities for future the healthcare challenges.