The inaugural Sláintecare Healthy Communities National Conference 2025 was held this week on October 21st in DCU St. Patricks; bringing together stakeholders from across health, local government, and community sectors to champion the ongoing work to address health inequalities. This is the first occasion where all the stakeholders in the programme have been brought together. The aim was to provide everyone with an opportunity to learn and share from international experts, and also from contributors who are working with the communities themselves. Four new areas have been added to the programme in 2025. They are currently being operationalised and will be announced shortly. The conference was launched by Minister Jennifer Murnane O’Connor, who acknowledged the collaborative effort of multiple government departments, local government bodies, the Health Service Executive (HSE) and various local partnerships to help deliver healthy communities nationwide.
Speakers showcased insights into the work in the local communities from HSE, local government and partner organisations, as well as theoretical and policy insights. A major highlight was keynote speaker, Professor Jennie Popay from Lancaster University, who added a critical and stimulating voice to the discussions. Professor Popay successfully posed challenging questions to the audience, focusing conversations on the systemic roots of health disadvantage and ensuring the conference kept a keen focus on equity, accountability, and the long-term changes required to dismantle barriers to health. Her input encouraged attendees to focus on community participation, structural and policy reforms and learn from other place based health inequality initiatives.
Professor Debbie Stanistreet shared some early findings from the ongoing process evaluation of the Sláintecare Healthy Communities initiative, while also using the opportunity of the conference to gather information and insights from the audience (via Slido) on some of the challenging areas for the evaluators and practitioners. The panel and audience discussion which followed widely acknowledged that the various partners can learn from the findings, when published next year, to enhance the services and programmes offered to those communities. The conference was closed by the Department of Health Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Mary Horgan, who thanked the colleagues from across the sectors for their support and implementation of SHC as a key health inequality initiative of Healthy Ireland.