HSJ AWARDS 2026 FINALIST
Recognising a co-designed approach to Lifestyle Medicine and health inequalities in Lewisham
Excellence in Narrowing the Health Inequalities Gap
The Lewisham Lifestyle Medicine Services have been named a finalist in the Excellence in Narrowing the Health Inequalities Gap category at the HSJ Awards 2026
Developed through partnership between primary care teams, local communities and Lifestyle Medicine Accelerator, the work demonstrates how Lifestyle Medicine can be designed around local need, reach people experiencing significant health inequalities, and become part of practical NHS delivery.
What began as a locally co-designed service in North Lewisham has since developed into a borough-wide approach, delivered through Integrated Neighbourhood Teams working across all seven Lewisham Primary Care Networks.
People, connection and place
01 / LOCAL CONTEXT
67%
of Lewisham’s population falls within CORE20PLUS
Starting with the community
Lewisham experiences significant health inequalities, with 67% of the population falling within CORE20PLUS.
For Lifestyle Medicine to make a meaningful difference in this context, simply making a programme available isn't enough. How that support is designed and delivered matters too.
That principle is central to the LMA approach. Rather than applying the same programme everywhere, we aim to work with NHS partners and their communities to understand local needs, priorities and barriers to engagement, and shape delivery around them.
In Lewisham, this meant developing a community co-designed service offering personalised, culturally tailored support across the six pillars of Lifestyle Medicine. Health and Wellbeing Coaches work with people through one-to-one and group sessions, alongside existing medical care.
Within the targeted North Lewisham diabetes programme, this translated into practical approaches including flexible follow-up, visual resources, understanding the whole person and prioritising connection over perfection.
The result is an approach with a consistent evidence-based framework, adapted to the people and place in which it is being delivered.
02 / PARTICIPANT REACH
Reaching the communities it was designed to support
The population context tells us why this work matters. Who engages with the service helps tell us whether the approach is reaching the people it set out to support.
In the first-quarter evaluation of the borough-wide Lifestyle Medicine service, 66% of participants identified as non-White, including 50% who identified as Black and 13% as Asian.
66%
83%
The targeted North Lewisham diabetes programme showed a similar picture. Of 74 participants living with diabetes or pre-diabetes, 83% identified as non-White.
Together with the service's focus on CORE20PLUS populations and people with multiple cardiovascular risk-related conditions, these figures provide important evidence of the programme reaching communities experiencing significant health inequalities.
And the patient experience matters alongside the numbers.
“I appreciated that there is a service to pick up people who’d otherwise be forgotten”
PARTICIPANT REFLECTION
Other participants described feeling more confident about what they could control, and valued support that felt accessible, personalised and applicable to their own lives.
03 / HEALTH & WELLBEING
Turning engagement into measurable change
Reaching people is only part of the picture. Evaluation of the service also shows measurable changes in health and wellbeing.
MEDIAN HbA1c | FIRST-QUARTER BOROUGH-WIDE EVALUATION
65.5 → 55.3 mmol/mol
In the first-quarter evaluation of the borough-wide programme, median HbA1c reduced from 65.5 to 55.3 mmol/mol, alongside significant improvements in systolic blood pressure and BMI.
Significant improvements were also recorded in mental wellbeing, social connection, sense of control over health, sleep, diet, exercise and health-related quality of life.
Earlier work with people living with diabetes and pre-diabetes in North Lewisham showed significant improvements in glycaemic control too.
Together, the findings build a broader picture of change: improvements in clinical measures alongside the behaviours, confidence and wellbeing that support people to manage their health over the longer term.
04 / INTEGRATED DELIVERY
From local service to borough-wide delivery
North Lewisham
LOCALLY CO-DESIGNED SERVICE
→
All 7 PCNs
INTEGRATED NEIGHBOURHOOD WORKING
The Lewisham story is also about what happens after an initial model begins to work.
The approach developed through North Lewisham and has since expanded through Integrated Neighbourhood working to serve all seven Lewisham PCNs.
The borough-wide service is open to adults across Lewisham, with targeted recruitment of people living with three or more cardiovascular disease-related conditions. Health and Wellbeing Coaches deliver personalised Lifestyle Medicine interventions alongside standard medical care.
This creates space for preventative care outside the constraints of the ten-minute GP consultation, with delivery shared across trained roles and integrated into existing NHS services - central principles of the LMA model.
What began as a local service has therefore provided the foundations for Lifestyle Medicine delivery across a whole borough.
05 / RECOGNITION
What this recognition represents
The Lewisham work has been shortlisted for the HSJ Awards 2026 as:
“Reimagining personalised care: Co-designed Lifestyle Medicine interventions for Underserved Populations.”
The Excellence in Narrowing the Health Inequalities Gap category recognises work addressing inequalities in healthcare access, experience and outcomes.
For LMA, the significance of the recognition lies in the story behind it: preventative care designed with communities rather than simply offered to them; evidence that underserved populations are engaging; measurable improvements in health and wellbeing; and an approach that has developed from local delivery into a borough-wide model.
It is recognition of what can happen when Lifestyle Medicine is designed to work with the realities of communities and the NHS systems serving them.
The Lewisham Lifestyle Medicine work has developed through collaboration between local communities, primary care teams and wider NHS partners, working in partnership with Lifestyle Medicine Accelerator.
Built through partnership
LET’S TALK ABOUT YOUR COMMUNITY
Could this approach work in your area?
Every community is different. Our role isn't simply to reproduce what worked somewhere else, but to help NHS organisations translate the principles of Lifestyle Medicine into a programme that works for their population, priorities and existing services.
Lifestyle Medicine Accelerator supports programme design, workforce training, implementation and evaluation - creating practical, measurable approaches to preventative care that can work within real-world NHS settings.