Over 100 professionals from primary, secondary, community, adult social care, mental health and public health and the voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise (VCFSE) sector attended a workshop recently to identify ways they can work more closely together to form Neighbourhood Teams (NT)providing even more focused and individual care for the people of Walsall.
Highlighting the importance of NT in providing co-ordinated care across different sectors, to create a seamless experience for local citizens, the event aimed was to understand more about what neighborhood teams might look like and how we can bring together diverse professionals and resources to improve the health and wellbeing of communities in a coordinated and comprehensive way.
This can involve sharing relevant data and information across services, developing shared care plans, removing duplication across workforce and other resources, enabling more appointments to focus on prevention, providing a single point of contact and taking responsibility for whole pathways of care.
To ensure that the development of the teams is centred around the needs of individuals, we heard real life examples of people’s experiences both good and bad to understand more how working closely together can improve outcomes for people.
Resh Patel, a local citizen, also attended the workshop to share her lived experience. She talked to the group about her ideas to support better joint working across sectors, ensuring people at the heart of policy and practice: "It's important to hear from those with lived experience to ensure people have choice and control over their own lives."
NTs aim to improve the overall health and wellbeing of the population by addressing both medical and social determinants of health. They focus on proactive and preventative care, aiming to identify and address issues before they become severe. The services provided by INTs are shaped by the specific needs of the neighbourhood they serve, and they prioritise care for vulnerable populations, including the elderly, individuals with chronic conditions, those with disabilities, and people experiencing mental health issues.
With this in mind, breakout sessions were held with people encouraged to think about what we know about our neighbourhoods, what it feels like for people living in different neighbourhoods, what does it mean for people when care is delivered jointly and how are we going to work together / develop our principles.
The event was a huge success with key connections made and feedback including “what a fabulous event, lots of engagement, commitments and solutions made” and “I wanted to say how inspiring the session was and the networking opportunities we were all given that hopefully will make a huge difference to the outcomes of our patients.”
A full review of the feedback is currently underway and the insights will be used to help build and shape our NT. Some initial key themes include communication, coordination, innovation, shared digital systems, digital poverty, VCFSE, and wider determinants. All seven neighbourhood teams have agreed to meet again and continue to find ways of working more closely together.
