WIREDGOV

Blog posted by: Caroline Bernard, Monday, 11 December 2017.

Homeless Link is one of the 21 voluntary sector members of the Department of Health funded Health and Wellbeing Alliance.

Led by the Department alongside Public Health England and NHS England, together known as the ‘system partners’, the Alliance is about to commence its ‘additional work’ programme and Homeless Link is leading and partnering on two new pieces of work.

Reducing health inequalities amongst inclusion health groups is co-led by Homeless Link and Friends, Families and Travellers, and involves seven other Alliance members. Inclusion health groups comprise asylum seekers and refugees, Gypsies and Travellers, vulnerable homeless people, and sex workers. The project will develop an audit tool to provide system partners with an understanding of the extent to which the Alliance is working with inclusion health groups, with a view to addressing health inequalities.

Tackling inequalities in End of Life Care (EoLC) for minority groups is led by Hospice UK, with Homeless Link as an expert partner. The project will seek to understand the needs of homeless people, Gypsies and Travellers and LGBTQ people in relation to the Government’s six-point End of Life Care commitment, and provide evidence for what can be put in place by commissioners and providers of EoLC to make the commitment a reality.

Reducing health inequalities of homeless families is co-led by Homeless Link and the Association for Young People’s Health, part of the Young People’s Health Partnership.  The work will develop a learning resource and toolkit for public health nurses to work with homeless families. The project involves seven other Alliance members, as well as Homeless Link member the Queen’s Nursing Institute. The work gets underway in December with a call for evidence of existing work and good practice.

Increasing voluntary sector involvement in health transformation

National Council of Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), one of our Alliance partners has been funded to do some work on increasing voluntary sector engagement in key discussions and decisions in the health system. Focusing on the new Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships (STPs) and accountable care systems, they will be running a programme in eight STP areas over the coming months. The programme will be split into two cohorts, one in the north of England and one in London. It will bring together delegates from across the public, voluntary and community sector in each area.

NCVO is looking for STP areas to put themselves forward for the programme. If you work in one of the areas covered by the programme and would like to get involved, please read the call for applications below. If you are a voluntary or community sector organisation, you would ideally need to work with other voluntary sector organisations in your area to express an interest in joining the programme or speak to your local STP lead.

If you want to find out who the STP lead is in your area, you can find details on the NHS England website. For further information, email John Gillespie at NCVO on John.Gillespie@ncvo.org

If you would like to keep up with developments on the ways that the voluntary and community sector is working with health partners, join the mailing list to receive monthly Voluntary Sector Update and News from the Department of Health by contacting HWAlliance@dh.gsi.gov.uk