The Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) has today announced the winners of the 2024 RSPH Health & Wellbeing Awards, the UK's premier awards scheme for promoting health and wellbeing.

Established in 2007, the Awards recognise and celebrate a wide range of activities, policies and strategies that empower communities and individuals, improve the population’s health and address the wider social determinants of health.

There are six categories: Arts & Health, Community Health Development, Health & Wellbeing in Workplaces, Health at Every Age, Healthier Lives, and Mental Health & Wellbeing.

Alongside these categories, the finalists (based in England) are also automatically entered for the Public Health Minister’s Award. Selected by a Department of Health and Social Care Award Committee led by the Minister for Public Health and Prevention, this award rewards excellence and innovation in public health programmes.

The winners of the 2024 RSPH Health & Wellbeing Awards are:

• Arts and Health (supported by the Philipp Family Foundation): National Arts in Hospital Network - Our National Health Stories
• Community Health Development (supported by Future Fit): Volunteer Centre Hackney - Volunteering in Primary Care (Together Better)
• Health & Wellbeing in Workplaces (supported by Business for Health): Swansea Bay UHB, Sharing HOPE – The Art of Healing Together
• Health at Every Age (supported by ukactive): University of Southampton LifeLab
• Healthier Lives (supported by Faculty of Public Health and Association of Directors of Public Health): British Red Cross, South East London Out of Hospital Project
• Mental Health & Wellbeing: James’ Place
• Public Health Minister’s Award: James’ Place

Additionally, Olympic gold medallist and active travel campaigner, Chris Boardman CBE, has received the John Snow Outstanding Contribution to Public Health Award. This award recognises individuals that go ‘above and beyond’ to improve the health of the public. Boardman has received this year’s award for his campaigning and leadership efforts to encourage movement and active travel through walking, wheeling and cycling.

Dr Jonathan Pearson- Stuttard FRSPH, Chair of RSPH said:

The role that public health plays in everyone’s lives has never been clearer than over the past few years. Our public health community has continued to deliver above and beyond to protect and improve the health of the public, and I am thrilled that we have had the opportunity to celebrate their impact and thank them for their work today.

Professor Bola Owlabi, Vice President of RSPH said:

As one of the Vice-Presidents of RSPH, I am immensely proud of the hugely impactful work the charity does so that we can all live healthier lives for longer. This year there are more pressures than ever impacting our mental and physical health.

It is vitally important that we celebrate the public health community, who work tirelessly to make a positive difference in communities across the country. The winners of this year’s RSPH Health & Wellbeing Awards truly prove that for public health to succeed we need to look at it from a Government, Local authority, Business and community level and work together.

Andrew Gwynne MP, Minister for Public Health and Prevention, said:

Public health has never been more important, and these awards are in recognition of the people that work so hard to improve the health and wellbeing of their communities.  

Whether it’s volunteers offering free locally-based activities such as coffee mornings to patients or offering better mental health support in an underserved area, the work that the entire public health workforce does every day is inspiring, and we cannot do without it.

It’s only with the support of the public health workforce that we can deliver improvements in our nation’s health which is why they’ll be an integral part of our reforms to healthcare. Through our 10 Year Health Plan, we will build an NHS that is fit for the future and delivers for its patients and workforce.

On receiving the John Snow Outstanding Contribution to Public Health Award, Chris Boardman CBE, said:

This Award means a lot to me and it’s also testament to the people that I work with. Getting people moving through forms of active travel or sport is fundamental to building health.

If we want to improve the health of the nation, we need to look at how we build physical activity into places across the country. The most important thing we need to do is make the make the most active option the easiest to the public.