VCSE Health Alliance – Update Bulletin – December 2023

December 2023

Next meeting

Our December meeting will focus on health inequalities. This topic was top of the list in your requests. We will have a local organisation show casing their partnership work and a number of colleagues from the ICB to explain specific programmes of work. This will include CORE20+5 and Population Health Management. It will be an interesting session, so we do hope you can make it. There will also be an opportunity to ask questions about the exciting development work that is happening at the moment.

Developing the Health Alliance

We can now tell you more about the support we have from NAVCA and the grant-making Trust, Assura. Over the next six months Aimie Cole from NAVCA will be helping us think through our plan for the future. And we have £75,000 from Assura to support this. Our plan is to focus this funding at community level and enable small local groups to play an active part in local neighbourhood teams. Aimie, working closely with our Alliance and the CVSs, will be planning the detail over the next two months. We will keep you informed as this takes shape.

Quality Development Tool workshops

This is a tool that has been put together by voluntary sectors partners and NHS England, to help Alliances assess where they are in their development. And more importantly, how they move to the next stage. In the New Year we will be holding workshops to look at this. Thanks to some funding from NHS England we will offering backfill funding to your organisation for attendance. We’re delighted that this has come at the same time as the NAVCA support so we can link this all together. Watch this space!

New brand, new name

Thank you to everyone who responded to our engagement survey and the suggestions for a new name. There was a lot of common thinking, as well as new ideas. We will take all of this into consideration as we work with Speed, the agency commissioned to develop our new brand. A group of Alliance members are involved and we’ll be making sure that our members are included in decisions. We are aiming to launch the brand in February. We know that there is a big comms job to be done to raise awareness of our Alliance and its benefits.

Workforce: Offers and asks

Sharon Allen, our rep on the Local People’s Board, does a great job raising awareness and securing opportunities for our sector. Please can you respond to some questions to help her in this role:

· Does your organisation complete any form of staff survey? If so, would you be willing to share results for comparison across the system?

· Does your organisation have a Freedom to Speak Up Guardian? If so, there is a system-wide network which we can link them into.

· Are any Health Alliance members able to attend the Enabler groups where we do not currently have representation? Unfortunately, we can’t offer funding to support this. Please contact Sharon if you can help with any of these Sharon.Allen@arhc.org.uk

VCSE Influence and Participation Project

The ICS Mental Health, Learning Disability and Autism Partnership (Accountable Business Unit) have appointed a VCS influencing post. Those of you working in these areas will know Fiona Kerr and may have attended the recent launch. The Health Alliance will work closely with Fiona and her Project Board to ensure we are strategically aligned.

Health Alliance meetings

Here are the dates of our future meetings, please do put them in your diary. If you would like to suggest a theme please contact sandie@huntsforum.org.uk. We are also keen to get members to Co-Chair meetings on their theme of interest.

• 6th December 1-3 pm Health inequalities Zoom
• 17th January 1-3 Health Alliance business March Library
• 28th February 9.30-11.30 Building partnerships Zoom
• 17th April 1-3 Health Alliance business Peterborough
• 22nd May 10-12 Theme tbc St Ives Corn Exchange

See here for more information about the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Health Alliance. You can also find the notes from the October Health Alliance meeting on this page.

Spread the word!

Last but not least, please pass this newsletter on to your team and other groups and organisations who may not yet be Health Alliance members. Anyone wishing to join should email Debbie Debbie@huntsforum.org.uk.