Voluntary Sector Providers

Today’s launch of our new report - Rolling out social prescribing: Understanding the experience of the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector - is the result of months of engagement with the wider community and charity sector.

Laura Bell summarises some of the key takeaways from our conference on putting people and communities at the centre, jointly hosted with the Richmond Group of Charities and NHS England.

Vicky Thomson, CEO of Lincolnshire based social enterprise Every-One, reflects on the challenges of being one of the ‘little guys’ trying to influence national policy agendas and make local care more person-centred care.

This is the fifth blog in a series on how National Voices members are enabling person-centred care. View other blogs in the series.

Claire Daley of Alzheimer’s Society talks about the simple ‘This is me’ resource that enables health and social care professionals to better understand who a person really is.

Sylvia Targett talks about the vital role of advocates and how the NHS can better engage with the third sector.

This is the fourth blog in a series on how National Voices members are enabling person-centred care. View other blogs in the series.

Ruby Waterworth of Youth Access shares how the ‘Our Minds Our Future’ campaign is giving young people a platform to call for better youth mental health support.

This is the third blog in a series on how National Voices members are enabling person-centred care. View other blogs in the series.

Verena Hewat, Community Outreach and Training Lead at Compassion in Dying explains how they have been working with Portuguese-speaking communities in Lambeth to make end-of-life care more person-centred.

The NHS England National Clinical Director for Dementia, Professor Alistair Burns, tells how a growing network of health and care staff are supporting elderly people to stay independent, keep well and get home quickly after a spell in hospital.

Tips on how voluntary sector organisations can work with Healthwatch:

• Have a local campaign you’d like to work with them on? Approach the regional managers to see if they can help get the word out.
   
• Offering a service? Contact your local Healthwatch so they know to signpost to you.
   
• Delve into all that data they collect: Healthwatch hears from over 400,000 people a year which means there is always more data than they can publish. But they are happy work with charities to provide access to their evidence and help build a shared understanding of specific issues. You can email research@healthwatch.co.uk with requests.

In this blog post, Chinwe Ude shares how Darent Valley hospital in Kent has improved and changed epilepsy services for children and their families, based upon their needs.