On the 20th March 2019, Healthwatch Lambeth and Healthwatch Southwark hosted a public event at the ORTUS Conferencing and Events Venue. Members of the public were invited to take part in a big conversation about the future health of Southwark and Lambeth’s communities.
The evening presentation and discussions had a strong focus on the recently launched NHS Long Term Plan, clarifying what it means for our local community and showcasing four local services that are working in alignment with the NHS Long Term Plan.
In order to give insights into the current health landscape, Dr Rachna Chowla (Southwark GP, and Clinical Lead Clinical Effectiveness Southwark) provided a thought-provoking summary of what health outcomes look like in the two boroughs. Her example of how health inequalities develop from interactions between socio-economic, geographic, and cultural factors showed that there can be a ten year difference in Healthy Life Expectancy, and a seven year difference in Life Expectancy, between two children who were born either in an affluent or deprived community in Southwark.
Source: Dr Rachna Chowla (Southwark GP, and Clinical Lead Clinical Effectiveness Southwark) presentation
Given this, Dr Chowla outlined how the NHS Long Term plan proposes to reduce health inequalities, with a specific focus on long term conditions and preventative interventions. With this in mind, attendees were introduced to four local health services that are currently working in alignment with the NHS Long Term plan;
- King’s Health Partners’ Mind & Body Programme
- Local Care Networks
- Local Care Record
- Children & Young People’s Health Partnership (CYPHP)
Attendees participated in two table discussions to learn about services and how they contribute to health prevention and support the health of local people.
It was great to see how interested people were in child and adolescent health, with lively discussions throughout the evening. We introduced the CYPHP programme and described how CYPHP is contributing to health promotion and supporting children and young people to be healthy, happy, and well. We gave out CYPHP leaflets describing how we provide proactive care for local children with asthma, constipation, eczema, and epilepsy. We talked in detail about how CYPHP supports children and their families to receive child and family centred assessments, early intervention, and specialist, co-ordinated care, faster and closer to home. An example of the Asthma leaflet is below:
Feedback from both tables agreed that CYPHP’s evidence based and integrated model of care is much needed. Comments included asking about when it could be integrated further into the community, including schools, Children Centres, and other local facilities. We were asked about the possibility of extending the CYPHP approach to other conditions, including Irritable Bowel Syndrome and other child abdominal pain conditions.
“Some families won't trust going to services - you have to come where families are - and where they will trust you.” Anonymous attendee
“Children's centres are a good place to go because lots of parents go there to get their babies weighed…. A lot of families like those seen by Homestart won't even go to the GP for example asylum seekers, there is definitely a lot of need.” Anonymous attendee
In addition, we described how CYPHP is reaching out to families who may experience barriers in accessing conventional health services . This was illustrated through looking at the data collated within the first year of the Health Check. A helpful summary is provided in the graphic below:
Finally, there were suggestions to integrate the public voice more into the programme. Suggestions included collaborations among established community groups, young people as CYPHP champions in schools, and building a peer support programme for families.
“Could CYPHP and Lambeth PPG network run a session together? Increase awareness of the programme amongst GPs and PPGs. This could link into the development of the primary care networks.” Anonymous attendee
People were invited to stay in touch through the newsletter, and/or to get further involved by becoming a public representation for CYPHP. It was great to see both members of the public and our local workforce sign up to both opportunities. If you would like to sign up to either, please contact Charlene.
CYPHP would like to thank Healthwatch Lambeth and Healthwatch Southwark for hosting the evening, and for their continued support in our and other local services.
To see more of the latest news from CYPHP, please click here.