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Health Creation Alliance Newsletter Winter 2023

Keeping members informed of how we are helping to address health inequalities through Health CreationView this email in your browser


Your Health Creation Winter Newsletter
December 2023

As colleagues at The Health Creation Alliance (THCA) prepare to down tools for a few days over the festive period, we are very mindful of the difficult times so many people are finding themselves in. ‘Cost of Living’ is just the latest of many crises affecting communities and frontline services alike with everyone now feeling the impact of extreme ‘winter pressures’.

Despite this, ICS leaders are being asked to do ‘split screen thinking’ – delivering post-COVID urgent and emergency recovery plans while at the same time continuing to double down on system transformation… as if the latter was a straightforward addition! Yet, what I heard from leading ICS Chairs and CEOs at NHS Confed’s ICS Network Conference gives me confidence that ICSs really are pushing forward on both and grappling with the complexities involved.

Looking forward to 2024, our new Manifesto for Health Creation, due for launch in March, will demonstrate how Health Creation supports rapid improvement, for example through redesign of care and clinical pathways, as well as preventative services that address the wider determinants of health. In other words, Health Creation isn’t just for the long-term… it is useful right now for systems to address their winter pressures. Because time is of the essence, in this newsletter we are sharing insight into work we are doing to support  Manchester Winter Wellbeing programme.

Over the spring and summer of 2024, through a series of events, we will share high impact learning, dig deeper into the real issues and solutions, reframe issues so they can be seen more clearly from community and cross-sector perspectives and raise challenging insights – all designed to help systems go further faster in making the shift to health creating, place-based working to address health inequalities; watch out for further information on these.

I hope you enjoy reading about our recent work and that we will see you in 2024. And whatever your circumstances or schedule over the winter months I do hope you manage to spend some time relaxing with friends and family.
Merron Simpson
Chief Executive



Spotlight on Manchester Winter Wellbeing Programme
In Manchester it is recognised that an increase in COVID-19 and Flu cases among vulnerable groups could exacerbate the winter pressure on the NHS.

To address this, Manchester Settlement, a charity rooted in Manchester’s urban communities, was commissioned to support enhanced levels of vaccination specifically, and winter health more broadly,  among Black, Asian and Minoritised Ethnic communities across three Primary Care Network areas – Ardwick and Longsight, Cheetham Hill and Crumpsall, and Ancoats, Clayton and Bradford.
 
Manchester Settlement commissioned THCA to support 12 VCSE organisations to adopt and embed Health Creation into their activities and programmes to improve communities’ health during the winter period and beyond. Ongoing development through 2024 will support wider understanding and adoption of Health Creation among staff and volunteers including through a local Health Creation Network to support ongoing reflection, learning and spread.
 
There will be an evaluation of this and other skills-enhancement programmes that THCA is engaged in; we look forward to sharing more with you in 2024.Our ‘Voices for Change’ work…Blogs
Is the NHS on the cusp of major transformation? Cross-rhythms, creative tensions and common threads… all signs of the complexity of transformation as witnessed by THCA CEO Merron Simpson at NHS Confederation’s ICS Network Conference attended by many ICS Chairs and CEOs on 28 November: Am I witnessing the NHS in transition? Or something more complex?Creating Spaces for Patient and Community Wellbeing
The Health Creation Alliance report for NHS Property Services on Creating Spaces for Community Wellbeing continues to inform debate with another airing at November´s ´Tomorrow’s Healthcare Property´ event held in Birmingham. Merron’s blog provides a near summary of the report: Creating health in communities; the role of NHS spaces

Literature review

Personalised care, community strengthening and social prescribing
Brian Fisher, former Chair and current Non-exec Director was commissioned by In Control to undertake a literature review of the evidence supporting personalised care, community strengthening and social prescribing, all of which are constituent parts of Health Creation. Delivered in two parts, you can download the reviews here.                       
Part 1 – personalised care and social prescribing
Part 2 – community strengthening
 
Editorial

The NHS needs to share power with the communities it serves
On 29 October 2023, Health Service Journal (HSJ) published a comment piece that considers  how embracing community strengthening – one component of Health Creation – is a key part to a sustainable and inclusive NHS. Authored by Brian, a copy can be found here.Letters

Cavendish Coalition letter to the Prime Minister
Following changes to the Health and Care visa announced on 4th December 2023, the Cavendish Coalition, of which THCA is a member, raised concern with the Prime Minister. Read the letter here.


Advancing Health Creation
The Kings Fund Annual Conference
On Wednesday 1 November,  Merron participated in a breakfast panel session at The Kings Fund Conference, their flagship annual two-day event.In the session experiences of community-led approaches to tackling cancer inequalities were presented, while the attendees heard how the framework for Health Creation was being used to support a pilot project being delivered in collaboration with St Barts Hospital. Supported by a grant from Novartis, this project is adopting our appreciative enquiry approach to improve breast cancer outcomes among marginalised and minority communities in East London. The outcomes of the pilot will be disseminated widely.

Discover and learn with us
An insight into some of the work of THCA

Health Creation to address health inequalities across PCNs in Surrey
In July 2023, THCA completed a year-long ‘Health Creation to address health inequalities’ Discovery Learning Programme in Surrey. Delivered in partnership with Surrey County Council, the overall aim of the programme was to enable primary care to play a full part in improving the health and wellbeing of Surrey’s and Frimley’s most disadvantaged neighbourhoods. More information about this will follow.

Supporting the emergence of a Lived Experience Parliament for North Yorkshire
The challenge. Different system partners have different approaches to engaging and coproducing with service users, contributing to fragmented communications, frustration among service providers and people with lived experience, and people’s wider needs inevitably not being met.
What we did. The Health Creation Alliance was commissioned by the North Yorkshire Community Mental Health Leadership Alliance to scope a different type of approach to coproduction, loosely based around the idea of a ‘parliament’ for people with lived experience.
How we did it. Following conversations with many stakeholder organisations, groups and individuals to diagnose the challenge,we generated a set of options that were tested in a workshop. This led to a broadly supported ‘prototype parliament’ and series of recommendations which were accepted by the Alliance. We then supported a group of people with lived experience to submit a proposal for funds to test the prototype and set up the parliament.
Impact. The prototype lived experience parliament provided a common vision that has helped to shift partners towards a common approach. Lived experience leaders have also connected through the process and they are now ready to build the parliament.
Core20PLUS Connectors Programme
 We are delighted to continue our collaboration with SCW and National Voices on the Core20PLUS Children and Young People Connectors Programme into the Spring of 2024. Our support offer includes an impactful appreciative inquiry approach to addressing one of the five clinical priorities identified by NHSE through Health Creation. ´Train the trainer´ sessions will enable the approach to be more widely adopted across the country.

Find more information on the Core20PLUS5 approach to reducing health inequalities for children and young people here.

Health Creation Discovery Learning Programmes for NHS
Supporting systems change on the ground
We can offer ICSs, Local Authorities, VCSE, housing organisation and others a growing range of options that support them to adopt and embed Health Creation to reduce health inequalities. We call this ‘Discovery Learning’ because the journey of discovery is important and is what makes the change possible. Wherever you and your system partners are on this journey, there is always something more to learn.

Learning from all our work over the last seven years has been incorporated into our Discovery Leaning Programme for ICSs.

Please take a look and share this with your colleagues and get in touch for a conversation with Neil on neil@thehealthcreationalliance.org if it prompts any ideas for how we might support your system to make the necessary changes.A big thank you to all those partners that support us in our ambition to make Health Creation business as usual across the health and care system!
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Lee Morgan
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