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Three public sector leaders on why they work with the voluntary sector
January 2018
Blogs
Three public sector leaders taking part in our Building Health Partnerships: Self-care programme share why they work with voluntary and community organisations.
Professor Mark Pietroni
Director of Public Health, South Gloucestershire
‘Working with the voluntary and community sector is a great way to deliver local solutions in the areas in which people live in the ways that they want.
More importantly perhaps, it is a great way to hear from local people and understand what the issues are and what a local solution looks like and how the capabilities of the local population can be supported to deliver local solutions. Doing this well requires a commitment to listening and change on both sides but the potential to do good things for our communities is great.’
Susan Harris
Director of Strategy and Partnerships (Worcestershire Health and Care Trust) and Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP) Communications and Engagement Lead
‘As a community and mental health provider, Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust has always worked in partnership with the voluntary sector to improve outcomes for local people.
We engage with our voluntary sector partners on a regular basis and in a variety of ways, both informal and formal. For example, we are a member of the Carers Partnership which brings together all local health and care partners to work together to advance the support offered to carers and a member of staff from our local Carers organisation is involved in our Equality Advisory Group which offers advice on the impact of proposed service changes on various groups so that additional engagement work can be undertaken if necessary.
We have a contract with another local voluntary sector partner to provide the local Well-being Hub which is integrated into the clinical triage function for secondary care mental health services and they also broker a range of local community groups to deliver a menu of services for the Well-being Hub to signpost into. When we undertake service re-designs, the local voluntary sector is key to the co-production process and always feed in their thoughts, ideas and concerns. They also help extend our engagement reach by communicating proposed changes to people on their database, and inviting them to offer their views and thoughts. As a Trust, we have learnt and benefited from these initiatives and we believe it is important to recognise all the value that the sector can bring. For example, in operational services, having volunteers at our Stroke unit as well-being strategic partners offering a broader view, often advocating on behalf of patient groups and communities. As part of our Sustainability and Transformation Plan we see these opportunities increasing and the benefits of cross sector working being better understood and core to the future delivery model of health and social care across our local area.’
Tom Hall
Director of Public Health for South Tyneside
‘The challenge for a modern health and care system is to be greater than the sum of its parts.
In South Tyneside we have recognised that to achieve the best we can for our population we can only do this by working together and making best use of the South Tyneside Pound. The South Tyneside Pound is the collective finite resources we have as a system and we have to use it wisely. It recognises that there is no new money and indeed that resources are reducing, and that there is no benefit from grappling within South Tyneside over that resource, bouncing it around for no real gain. The concept of the South Tyneside Pound is important to us and our local Alliance (a model we have pinched with pride from Canterbury New Zealand). We have a mantra that says “what is best for the person is best for the system”. We have recognised that this can only be achieved through strong system leadership and we have an Alliance Leadership Team which consists of the third sector, clinical commissioners, care commissioners, care providers, health providers (including acute, community, mental health and primary care). Our leadership team is focused on four areas: role modelling the behaviours we want to see in the system, coaching the system in these behaviours, challenging ourselves and the system to act in line with those behaviours, and learning from our successes and challenges.’
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