The King's Fund new report: 'Actions to support partnership'
The King’s Fund, the UK’s leading health think-tank, has published research on how local Health systems can build better partnerships with the VCSE sector. Commissioned by NHS England, the report includes examples of how together we can support the sector’s role through:
1. Sharing data, intelligence and insight
2. Commissioning, service design and delivery
3. Funding and sustainable investment into the VCSE sector.
VSNW CEO, Warren Escadale, said “We are pleased to have contributed to this report and to ensuring the ongoing inclusion of the sector in health and care. We know that the reorganisation of the Health and Care system over the last year has been difficult for all involved and we will continue to do our utmost to support our sector’s voice and potential. We know there’s a long way to go but the more we can outline how to work with us, through reports like this, the better.”
Further Reading
To read the report in full, please view Kings Fund - Actions to support partnership
King’s Fund Video - NHS in England explainer - (5 mins 44 secs)
NHS Confederation guide to ‘How health and care systems can work better with the VCSE sector’: https://www.nhsconfed.org/system/files/2021-06/How-health-and-care-systems-can-work-better-VCSE.pdf
King’s Fund’s guide to NHS reorganisation: ‘Integrated Care Systems Explained’: https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/integrated-care-systems-explained
Cheshire & Merseyside VCFSE state of the sector survey launched today
Today is launch of the Cheshire and Merseyside VCFSE sector survey as part of a collaboration with the VS6 Partnership, Cheshire and Warrington Infrastructure Partnership (CWIP) and Voluntary Sector North West (VSNW). If you are a voluntary, community, faith or social enterprise organisation operating in Cheshire and Merseyside we invite you to be part of this exciting research project!
The survey is a crucial part of a wider Cheshire and Merseyside State of the Sector project designed to develop a deeper understanding of the VCFSE sector across the region in order to improve knowledge of the size and scope of the sector, understand needs and challenges, and develop data and insights that can be used at a regional and place level with commissioners, funders and to influence policy and decision making.
The VCFSE sector is facing many challenges including the aftermath of COVID-19, Brexit and the current cost of living crisis therefore it is essential that we develop a thorough understanding of the current state of the sector so we can plan for achieving a sustainability and resilience in Cheshire and Merseyside moving forward. Alongside this survey, we will also be producing several case studies across the region to elevate and ground this work.
This survey will ask questions on topic areas such as finance and funding, physical assets, workforce, and organisational development as well as general questions about your organisation type and areas of work.
The survey should take no longer than 15-20 minutes to complete and will be active until Friday 28th April. For any questions, please contact Laura Tilston at laura.tilston@vsnw.org.uk
To access the survey please follow this link: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/BRVW623
Many thanks for your participation.
Note on data transparency
All information provided through this survey will be held electronically by Voluntary Sector North West (VSNW) who are facilitating the collection, analysis and write-up of this data. All data will remain anonymous within any publicly available documents that are produced. Data obtained from each Cheshire and Merseyside borough will also be shared with the corresponding local CVS for use in future place-based work.
VSNW Gains Living Wage Accreditation
VSNW is delighted to announce that we are now accredited as a Living Wage Employer. Our work covers the North West, a region with nearly a fifth of all jobs (18.4%) paying less than the real Living Wage - around 534,000 jobs. Despite this, we have committed to pay the real Living Wage and deliver a fair day’s pay for a hard day’s work.
The real Living Wage is the only rate calculated according to the costs of living. It provides a voluntary benchmark for employers that wish to ensure their staff earn a wage they can live on, not just the government minimum. Since 2011 the Living Wage movement has delivered a pay rise to almost 400,000 people and put over £2 billion extra into the pockets of low paid workers.
Katherine Chapman, Director, Living Wage Foundation said: “We’re delighted that VSNW has joined the movement of almost 11,000 responsible employers across the UK who voluntarily commit to go further than the government minimum to make sure all their staff earn enough to live on.
“They join thousands of small businesses, as well as household names such as Burberry, Barclays, Everton Football Club and many more. These businesses recognise that paying the real Living Wage is the mark of a responsible employer and they, like VSNW, believe that a hard day’s work deserves a fair day’s pay."
Public invited to share views on Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership Strategy
Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership has launched a campaign to seek the views of people, communities and partners on the priorities within its interim strategy.
Our health is affected by many things – housing, unemployment, financial stress, domestic abuse, poverty and lifestyle choices. This can only truly be addressed via partnership working.
Consisting of representatives from across our communities, the NHS, local authorities, voluntary sector, housing, police, education and fire and rescue, and local businesses - our Partnership Board provides a multi-agency approach to assess the health, public health and social care needs of people across Cheshire and Merseyside – and develop a combined strategy to address them.
Through this campaign, the Partnership wants to gather as many views as possible and use them to shape its combined strategy and joint forward plan.
Speaking at the launch of the campaign, Health and Care Partnership Chair, and Leader of Cheshire West and Chester Council, Louise Gittens, said;
“We want to hear people’s thoughts on our priorities, and experiences of living and accessing services in Cheshire and Merseyside.
The development of Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to combine our efforts and collective resources to make real improvements to the lives our people and communities.
We’re calling on our people, communities and partners to please visit our campaign webpage, review our interim strategy, and answer some simple survey questions to help shape it further”.
The survey will remain open for several weeks, and once closed, all feedback will be reviewed, and used by the Partnership to both the finalise its combined strategy, and develop a more detailed delivery plan (called a Joint Forward Plan) by the end of June 2023.
Opportunities and future of volunteering co-ordination in LCR highlighted in recent report
TeamKinetic, in collaboration with Liverpool City Region CVSs, Voluntary Sector North West (VSNW) and VS6 Partnership, are pleased to present an in depth review of local volunteering responses in Liverpool City Region and the opportunities to develop a more resilient and sustainable VCFSE volunteering response for the future.
The report, entitled “Embedding & Evaluating the NHS Volunteer Responders Scheme – Integrated Liverpool City Region Volunteering Platform” explores and aims to understand the requirements for integration of local and national volunteering schemes onto one platform. The benefits of which include having a long-term sustainable and resilient service for LCR with better two-way communication, local ownership, wider promotion of volunteering opportunities and a shared database of volunteers for more streamlined co-ordination.
TeamKinetic design bespoke volunteer management software to support VCFSE and public sector organisations to develop and retain volunteer workforces and communities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, TeamKinetic worked closely with Halton and St Helens VCA to develop their volunteer system in response to the rising demand in both volunteers needed and number of people wanting to get involved in volunteering.
The TeamKinetic platform enables interoperability of local systems and national prescribed volunteer infrastructure including the NHS Responder Scheme, and ensures that volunteer management is aligned to local need.
Reflecting on the journey with TeamKinetic and developing an LCR-wide Volunteer System, Sally Yeoman, CEO of Halton & St Helens VCA said:
“Over the past 2 years we have been overwhelmed by the response of local people in our City Region who came out to volunteer during the COVID-19 pandemic. We have learnt how to make volunteering easier for people to do and how to best support and encourage people to give their time for local groups or causes. Supported by our local partners, we were able to lead this work on volunteering and with our plans to extend our work in this area we will be able to do more of that in the future.”
Chris Martin, Director of TeamKinetic said:
“The last 2 years have been like nothing else we have ever experienced when it comes to volunteering, and it has been truly amazing to see how communities responded. It's been a fascinating experience, learning more about what motivates volunteers across the Liverpool city region. Our hope is we can continue to maintain that motivation and the learning to generate benefits both locally and nationally from these wonderful volunteers.”
Warren Escadale, Chief Executive of VSNW said:
“Nothing shone brighter during the pandemic than the willingness to help each other. Volunteers were a huge part of this. Going forward, this report and it’s recommendations are how we can make taking action easier”
Following the success in Halton and St Helens each CVS in LCR is now working with TeamKinetic to develop their own optimised version of TeamKinetic, strengthening existing locality arrangements and to act as a local front door for volunteers and VCFSE groups. These platforms will allow the seamless sharing of volunteer opportunities and information, creating a large pool for volunteers to explore.
The VS6 Partnership will continue to work closely with LCR CVSs and TeamKinetic to further develop the LCR-wide approach to volunteer co-ordination taking into consideration the recommendations provided.
This report was commissioned by VSNW with funding from the Cheshire & Merseyside Health and Care Partnership. VS6 Partners would like to extend thanks to the Partnership for their support with this work.
To access the report, please click here.
Five new e-learning modules have been launched to support systems in the implementation of Core2PLUS5; NHS England’s approach to reducing healthcare inequalities.
CORE20plus5 is the NHSE approach to identifying and informing interventions at both national and local levels to narrow the gap and tackle health inequalities. The proposed approaches outlined within CORE20plus5 are embedded across two very distinct elements:
CORE20 – as means of identifying the social determinants of health through national population data across the top 20% most deprived neighbourhoods within the Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMDs).
Plus5- identification of five key thematic clinical priorities for local and regional systems to develop tailored approaches to capture those groups and communities not included within the core20. The five clinical priority areas are hypertension, early cancer diagnosis, chronic respiratory disease, maternity and severe mental illness
The e-learning modules are aimed at anyone with a responsibility or interest in reducing health inequalities – especially those working to deliver services in the ‘5’ clinical priority areas.
Each module takes around 30 minutes to complete.
The modules are available for free on the HEE E-learning for health platform: https://www.e-lfh.org.uk/programmes/health-inequalities/
1000 Community Voices Report: Community Experiences of the Covid-19 Pandemic from the North West
VSNW are pleased to share the publication of our latest reports: “1000 Voices: Cheshire & Merseyside”, and “1000 Voices: Lancashire and Cumbria” in collaboration with NHS England – North West.
These reports detail and summarise 800 first-hand accounts and experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic collected from specific communities across Cheshire & Merseyside and Lancashire & Cumbria, with 400 “voices” collected from each region. This research forms part of a wider programme of work developed by NHS England – North West to better understand the experiences of the pandemic by communities across the North West including how gaps in health inequalities have widened and to develop recommendations for current and future working. The remainder of the 1000 voices (200) were collected separately in other areas.
For the Cheshire & Merseyside and Lancashire & Cumbria projects, specific communities were identified by NHS England – North West and chosen via local intelligence to focus on people from backgrounds and demographics most marginalised and exposed to the impacts of COVID-19 in those areas:
· Cheshire & Merseyside
o People who do not have English as a first language
o People who are digitally excluded
o People living in the most deprived areas as measured by the Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD).
o People over 55 who are not in education, employment or training.
· Lancashire & Cumbria
o People from ethnic minority backgrounds
o People aged under 25
o People who are on the autistic spectrum or otherwise disabled.
o People living in rural areas.
o People living in the most deprived areas as measured by the Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD).
Voices were collected and analysed by VSNW with the support of place-based infrastructure organisations across the regions that expertly connected us in to organisations and individuals on the ground.
Warren Escadale, Chief Executive of VSNW said:
“The learning about the unequal impact of the pandemic reflects long term inequalities. These voices need to be heard. As the new health equalities framework, Core20PLUS5, is rolled out these lessons need to be at the forefront of service review and design.
In many ways, the pandemic gave us a preview of what an online world could look like and how it can go wrong. We need to use these lessons to inform our consideration of what does and does not work so we don’t repeat our mistakes.”
The voices collected are extremely insightful into the lives of those most vulnerable to COVID-19 and the subsequent pandemic impacts that many of these communities are still dealing with. They are also heart-breaking, frustrating and yet in some cases, despite everything, hopeful.
The voices, experiences and recommendations detailed within this report will be shared with the newly developed Integrated Care Boards across the North West to influence the design of services and to ensure that our most vulnerable and marginalised communities are put at the very heart of strategy and service development.
To access the Cheshire & Merseyside 1000 Voices Report click here.
To access the Lancashire & Cumbria 1000 Voices Report click here.
For a blog with an overview of the 1000 Voices work across the North West please click here.
Cheshire & Merseyside Health Care Partnership (HCP) are seeking to secure a second Vice-Chair
Cheshire & Merseyside Health Care Partnership (HCP) are seeking to secure a second Vice-Chair who will represent the voluntary sector and are seeking individuals from the VCSE sector to submit an Expression of Interest for this position.
The HCP are looking for an individual employed within Cheshire and Merseyside based or focused VCSE organisations, however, please be aware that as Joint Vice Chair of the HCP you would be representing the whole VCSE sector in Cheshire and Merseyside and not your employing organisation.
The HCP are looking for a dynamic strategic focused leader to undertake the role of Joint Vice Chair, who meets the following criteria:
Able to act as a catalyst and connector for change within the existing and emerging ICS governance structures.
Open to learning and being challenged, offering constructive challenge to others.
Able to build an effective rapport with your fellow HCP representative colleagues and can build on each other’s strengths and weaknesses.
Committed to supporting the broader VCSE sector (and the vision of the HCP) beyond your own organisational interests.
Willing to make yourself accountable to the wider VCSE sector by linking into and out from the Cheshire and Merseyside VCFSE Health and Care Leaders Group and its Secretariat.
Ability to attend the below meetings on the following cycle
The HCP meet bi-monthly with meetings scheduled for 2 hours from January 2023 plus bi-monthly agenda setting and workplan review meeting also scheduled for 2 hours from February 2023, plus an annual HCP conference
If you would like to be considered for this role, please complete the Expression of Interest form and return to Clare Watson ( Assistant Chief Executive) via e-mail to clare.watson@cheshireandmerseyside.nhs.uk by 5pm on 25 November 2022
VSNW joins forces with Answer Cancer to pledge paid leave for workers to attend screening appointments
Concerning new research has found that some people are unable to attend cancer-screening appointments due to working full–time. For example, according to recent information shared by Jo’s Trust, only 1 in 5 full-time workers were able to get a convenient cervical screening appointment last time they tried to book.
To help address this, Voluntary Sector North West (VSNW) have made a commitment to their staff that they can attend cancer screening appointments during work hours, if unable to get an appointment at a different time.
VSNW are also supporting Answer Cancer’s engagement strategy by raising the profile of health and wellbeing in the workplace and empowering their team to look after their health.
The ‘Bee Seen – Get Screened’ campaign encourages raising awareness of the screening programmes available to the public by way of training, staff sessions and much more.
Warren Escadale, Chief Executive of Voluntary Sector North West (VSNW) said:
“We are proud to support the ‘Bee Seen – Get Screened’ campaign. The health and well-being of our staff is very important to us and we will continue to raise awareness of the campaign to help others to recognise the importance of screening programmes”.
Alison Page, Chair of the Answer Cancer Programme said:
“As a programme that is already working to increase cancer screening rates across Greater Manchester, at Answer Cancer we know the importance of removing barriers to taking part in screening. These can include cultural barriers or language issues, but for many it is as simple as being able to take time off work to attend screening.
We are pleased to support the ‘Bee Seen – Get Screened’ initiative for our staff and would encourage all workplaces to join in and help tackle cancer.”
If you would like to find out more about the “Bee Seen – Get Screened” initiative you can email Answer Cancer at info@answercancergm.org.uk.