VCS Round Table Discussion

VCS Round Table Discussion

Public Health

3 June 2013 Meeting

Present

Apologies

Graeme Jones – Hillside Clubhouse, Mike Sherriff – Voluntary Action Islington, Ninna – One True Voice, Rachel Toogood – Creative Islington

Cllr Mouna Hamitouche opened the meeting. This was the fourth in a series of round table meetings bringing the council and local voluntary sector organisations together to discuss key challenges facing Islington’s communities.

The discussion was to be of particular interest to the voluntary sector because of the transfer of responsibility for public health to Islington Council. The discussion was to include the public health priorities for Islington, the new arrangements for delivering public health and how local community organisations can engage with the public health agenda and the new arrangements in the borough.

The meeting was informed bytwo presentations which helped to set the scene for the discussion:

1. Public Health in Islington Voluntary and Community Sector Dialogue event –presented by Julie Billett, Director of Public Health
2. A track record in making a difference by delivering excellence in health and social care – presented by Phillip Watson, Manor Gardens

Copies of the presentations are enclosed with these notes.

Discussion:

Julie Billettfacilitatedthe discussion. The areas covered by the discussion and the points made, are summarised below:

Public health priorities for Islington

• GPs cannot afford to get face to face translators for their patients. This can make it hard for them to assess patients. In Islington there is no commissioning of face to face translation services. The closest service available is for people to ring language line.
• More informationis needed on the range and function ofhealth services to support people to access and navigate them.
• CCG should support to get more female doctors where patients request this at surgeries, although there is a high number of female GPs is Islington so this should not be a big issue.
• Sex and Relationship Education is provided in schools but there should be a greater focus on sexual health.
• Healthwatch Islington (provides users with a voice on health and social care services and replaces the LINK) has a seat on the Health and Wellbeing Board (HWB). It puts forward people’s views on local health issues,and reports and makes recommendations. It gets involved in decision making through committees and monitors services. For example it sees service users and works with the Quality Care Commission. It provides people with information through its website ( and givesadvice on rights and signposting at early stages. A leaflet was circulated by Emma Whitby on Healthwatch Islington – Your views count.
• Phill Watson is also a director of Islington Healthwatch. There are two part-time paid posts. Healthwatch does not represent the VCS.
• In Islington social isolation is a huge problem especially as single occupancy in the borough is the highest in the UK. This can make people physically and mentally ill. Age UK and Manor Gardens are providing services in this area.
• VCS does not have direct input into the HWB and the agenda being set around this. DAII suggest a series of meetings, for example on the impact of the welfare changes.
• With joint commissioning between the two boroughs, how can small organisations tap into funding streams?
• With Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) cultures respond to psychological therapies differently. Communities need to be supported and educated around AAD and the different psychological support available.
• For Work Capability Assessments, the initial assessment is not done by the GP.Quality of medical evidence is often unreliable (e.g. Law Centre wins 80% of cases). Also with assessments people are getting poor outcomes that don’t support their benefit claims.
• GPs are often charging for medical evidence (£100 in some cases) which people cannot afford to pay for. They should be encouraged to help minimise the impact of welfare reform changes e.g. by giving patients the phone number of the Income Maximisation team.
• People on the Work Programme do not understand the next steps, these can be complex. People need to get a clearer understanding of their health conditions and the support available to them so that they can be helped into work.

New arrangements for delivering public health

• Formal meetings of the HWB are being reduced to 4 a year. Seminars will be set up on relevant themes e.g. housing and health, air quality and the tobacco alliance.
• Public Health (PH) will look at the shared priorities and needs in both boroughs.
• Healthwatch can support people to understand and access the health system.
• Can some simple diagrammatic representation be produced to help organisations understand the new health structures?
• HWBmeetings are public and information on forthcoming meetings can be accessed through Islington Council’s website via .
• There is a new Islington Evidence Hub. Info including local stats, the JSNA, factsheets, in-depth reports all in one place:

How local community organisations can engage with the public health agenda and the new arrangements in the borough

• For small organisations PH needs to engage more effectively with them.
• There needs to be a more systematic approach around procurement and applying for grants. For example the funding for Lung and Bowel Cancer (£20K per organisation).
• Martyn gave the example of St. Luke’s. It doesn’t cover the entire borough and hasn’t the resources to do so. Recently a Leeds based organisation won a contract for tackling obesity. Is PH looking to the local VCS to be a voice for the community, or to provide low level advice, or to deliver services? It’s difficult to do all three. If it’s ‘voice’, organisations would need resources to facilitate this.
• We need to raise awareness with statutory and VCS providers of how health links in on wider issues e.g. housing, welfare reform, especially where Public Health are not commissioning specifically around health.These areas also result in people suffering from poor health.
• There are many procurement constraints. For example meeting the requirements of a tender specification. There is still a journey to travel on how statutory and VCS organisations can work together on this.
• Procurement process excludes small organisations, documents are complex and lengthy, nature of procurement is not easy. It can be hard to get the evidence required for applications. There should be more opportunities for local VCS e.g. could deliver health checks.
• Next month a report is going to Executive on VCS Procurement. This is intended to provide a level playing field for local organisations and includes recommendations on recognising social value, partnering/forming consortia, simplifying tender documentation and facilitating proportionate procurement.

Actions being taken forward:

PH to arrange more regular and systematic consultation with VCS organisations (see also the priorities bulleted on presentation slide ‘What we want to achieve with the VCS’).

Procurement procedures to be reviewed by the council to identifyopportunities for local service delivery and to make processes more proportionate to the money on offer.

PH to be better at engaging with VCS before procurement to ensure organisations are aware of opportunities and to work with the VCS to support partnership bids.

Mitigating the impacts of welfare reform and assessing how these changes are affecting people’s health should be prioritised. The Council has a specific group working on this.

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Jugjit Samra 3 June 2013

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