Leaders in South Yorkshire gathered together to begin developing a neighbourhood care strategy.
On the 14th June, hosted by the City of Doncaster at Doncaster Civic Centre, leaders from across South Yorkshire came together to explore how to develop a South Yorkshire Strategy for Neighbourhood Care.
The event included representatives from key statutory roles (NHS commissioning, NHS Trusts, Public Health, Adult Social Care, Children’s Social Care) and from all four cities (Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield), from the NHS South Yorkshire Integrated Care System and the South Yorkshire Combined Mayoral Authority. The meeting also included leaders from voluntary sector umbrella organisations and from members of Citizen Network (PFG Doncaster, Inclusion North, KeyRing and Self-Directed Futures).
The event was facilitated by Dr Simon Duffy of Citizen Network with support from the City of Doncaster.
There is widespread recognition that wellbeing, justice and efficiency demand a shift of attention to citizens and local communities. Global evidence and good practice suggests that neighbourhoods (av. size 4,000 people) offer the ideal framework for both organising mutual aid and coordinating professional services. There are many exciting examples of neighbourhood and citizen action upon which to build, locally, nationally and globally.
In addition to major health and wellbeing improvements, this work would also be in harmony with other urgent priorities:
However progress in England remains slow and in many areas we seem to be going in reverse. Austerity, the highly centralised nature of power in England and the procurement practices of the late 1980s have created a situation where policy intentions are often confused or self-contradictory. Our best chance of progress is to create a community of practice which can shape a more coherent and attractive way forward in reality and use this to reshape the wider policy context.
These slides from Citizen Network set out some of the evidence for the need for a shift in an approach and also include notes from the day's discussion.
South Yorkshire has all the ingredients necessary to be a global leader in developing an effective model of neighbourhood care and building the necessary alliances across the community to transform large parts of the health and social care system. There are several reasons for this described below.
The South Yorkshire Combined Mayoral Authority (SYCMA) is supportive of transformative, community-based change and the Mayor is the Chair of the NHS Integrated Care Board and the Police Commissioner. The NHS Integrated Care Board is co-terminus with the Mayoralty and the 4 cities of Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield, NHS policy includes many supportive threads including a commitment to integrated primary care delivered at a local level. These slides describe some of the emerging innovations and how important are the cross-cutting benefits of working more closely with communities.
Barnsley has a long history of citizen-led innovation and has developed some of the most significant reforms to council governance in England, drawing power and decision-making closer to citizens. It has been a leader in the development of self-directed support and pioneered the Future Jobs Fund, which showed how local solutions to employment are more effective than Whitehall-led programmes. It has had a long standing commitment to shifting resources back into communities and reshaping public services to build better relationships at the local level.
Doncaster is using a neighbourhood framework across all its work, centred around its Thrive Model. It is using that framework to develop innovative local commissioning and closer work in partnership with the voluntary sector. The peer support community in Doncaster, in particular PFG Doncaster, is doing world-leading work, with community and service change led by people with lived experience.
Rotherham has one of the best reputations in the country for its social prescribing, linking primary care to communities and supporting a shift of resources to community organisations. It adopted a Thriving Neighbourhoods Strategy in 2018 and its planning is rooted in its neighbourhood plans. There are ward budgets and peer support and family hubs are being developed across the authority.
Sheffield has committed itself to a shift in governance, to enabling neighbourhoods to become hubs of community change and to working in ways that share the City Goals as a collaborative, city-wide and citizen-led process. NHS Sheffield has started to invest in some of the most poorly served areas using a strategy where local people and community anchors lead the way in defining the best solutions.
The publisher is Citizen Network Research. Developing Neighbourhood Care in South Yorkshire © Simon Duffy 2024.
children and families, Citizen Network, community, Community Health, health & healthcare, mental health, Neighbourhood Care, Neighbourhood Democracy, social care, England, Article
