An approach developed in Scotland for improving the health and wellbeing of people with chronic illness has been trialled in four communities in Tasmania, producing some critical insights that have broader relevance.

Known as "anticipatory care", this approach is based upon the premise that if we can understand the systems that shape people’s health into the future, it might be possible to anticipate their medical and social health needs.

Our aim was to see whether local actions could help the anticipatory care system work better in preventing chronic illness and managing existing illnesses. There is already plenty of evidence that the health ‘system’ is poorly organised and difficult to navigate.