Voluntary Sector Providers

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.

Chief Executive of National Voices, Jeremy Taylor, shares his reflections and learnings from the National Voices Conference 2018.

Natalie Castro currently runs the Befriending Plus project for One Westminster that supports many older people living in the borough through its network of volunteer befrienders. The aim is to improve the lives of older people and help them remain as independent as possible.

At a time when general practice is under pressure, volunteering has been highlighted as a means of engaging with communities. In its latest report, The King's Fund shares the different ways volunteers are contributing to general practice.

Anna Charles, Senior Policy Adviser at The King's Fund, shares how community services could offer solutions to the pressures on the health and care system across the country.

Ewan King shares learnings from SCIE's recent briefing on how to grow small-scale, community-led innovations to improve people’s lives.

Care navigators are ‘bridging’ roles in our communities. Find out how they are improving quality of life for older people on the Isle of Wight.