City and Hackney projects

Taking place bi-monthly and focusing on analysing how transformation programmes involve residents in their work so that they can provide assurance to the City and Hackney Health and Care Board. Transformation leads will use our Co-Production Charter self-assessment tool as a framework for the content that comes to the People and Place Group. In December 2022 and February 2023, the People and Place Group assessed deep dives into the involvement and participation activity carried out by the Children and Young People Transformation Programme and the Long-Term Conditions Transformation Programme, enabling the group to offer assurance to the City & Hackney Health and Care Board that excellent work is taking place around engagement in these areas.

Supported by the Engagement and Coproduction Contract, the C&H Public Representatives (Reps) are a diverse group of local people. They are supported to attend a variety of Place-based partnership meetings, including People and Place, the Mental Health Integration Committee, Primary Care Enabler Group, Children and Young People Oversight Board, and many more. At these meetings, they bring the patient perspective and hold the system to account to ensure the public voice is considered. The Reps also offer engagement and co-design sessions to projects and initiatives from across the partnership organisations, and often co-design engagement plans.

A collaborative piece of work undertaken by the NHS Engagement Team and the Community Voice Contract, using a combination of targeted focus groups (older people, carers), surveys and one-to-one interviews (with users of the existing hospital at-home service) to help the development of virtual wards for both frailty and respiratory patients. We are exploring what works well with the current hospital-at-home service, what patients and carers may find worrying about the proposed virtual wards programme, and how services could best address those concerns. We gathered feedback from 16 older residents in relation to proposals for the virtual frailty ward. We will hold a similar session with residents living with respiratory conditions and combine insights gained with from the focus groups with feedback gathered via surveys to recommend improvements to help shape the virtual wards service in City and Hackney.

We have been working in collaboration with Homerton Health and Healthwatch City of London to explore access equity for Long Covid services. With a combination of a survey (286 responses from residents actively living with Long Covid) and three focus groups attended by 24 residents (City area, Hackney, online across City and Hackney) we explored the barriers different groups may face in seeking support to manage their symptoms and how these symptoms impact their day-to-day lives. Valuable insights are currently being analysed and we will produce a report with recommendations designed to improve access to services for Black and minority groups.

Managed by Engagement and Coproduction in collaboration with our Children and Young People Integrated Workstream, this iteration of the System Influencer Programme is now complete. The programme enabled local young people to work with system mentors from four projects to co-produce various outcomes, for example, the creation of newsletters, and marketing material to help Homerton Hospital inform young people about opportunities for work experience/volunteering or internships, targeted engagement with young people from the Turkish community to support the Neighbourhoods programme and supporting the local authority needs assessment around healthy weight/activity for young people. As well as benefiting the system by allowing young people to have a voice in shaping services, the programme has given the young people involved skills and experience. This has improved their confidence and employability – two of the young people moving into paid roles within the health and care system as a direct result of the experience they have gained. Funding has been secured to run a 12-month programme from April 23, with additional focus on employability for the young people the programme will support.

This fund supporting improvements in how the transformation programmes involve residents in decision-making has now launched with proposals focused on 1) an engagement project to improve mental health services for ex-offenders, 2) an engagement project to help shape the local carers strategy, 3) a patient led project to provide accessible and culturally appropriate information around women’s health, including symptom management advice and information about local services and 4) System Influencers – employability focused strand of the successful programme designed to mentor young people, allowing them to influence service provision in City and Hackney.

We continue to support the winter vaccinations and polio immunisations programme by engaging with community stakeholders and the Supporting Homes for Ukraine programme by sharing health information and the health services directory and attending their Welcome Event.

Collaboration between Homerton University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, NHS North East London and the Healthwatch Community Voice contract to understand resident perception of a proposed mobile spirometry service. We created a survey, completed by almost 2,000 local residents. We followed this up with an online focus group attended by 17 residents. Findings supported the business case proposed by the hospital trust to seek funding for the mobile testing unit.

We want to ensure that information we produce is clear and informative to all residents in City & Hackney. To achieve this, we will work with the Older People’s Reference Group to set up a Readers’ Group that will help review materials before publishing them. 

This fully collaborative piece of work undertaken by partnership organisations has entered its final phase, with the task group now looking at recommendations and actions from the review. Draft recommendations are now complete and we will be sharing them with partners for reflection. The task group will be creating an action plan based on the recommendations in Qrt 1 of 23/24.

An equality impact assessment (EIA) involving 48 groups, networks or projects informed the EIA. It aimed to assess how well ‘system partners’ are engaging with City and Hackney’s diverse communities and to understand how much the following three objectives are currently being met:

1. Our current approach(es) is accessible and allows the involvement of our diverse communities in City and Hackney. 
2. Equitable systems enable insight from various sources/organisations to inform decision-making and interventions co-produced by City and Hackney residents and communities.
3. There are gaps in our approach(es) and the actions needed to reduce unintended or negative impacts.

Findings from the EIA informed the recommendations of the broader engagement review.

In City and Hackney, we have been exploring how rising costs impact on local people’s health and well-being. Before Christmas we shared a survey, and residents told us about the adverse effects on their mental health. We heard that people with long-term conditions were experiencing difficulties managing their symptoms whilst limiting heating and hot water costs. The survey results suggested areas where additional support would be helpful. Findings were shared in December at the Hackney Health and Wellbeing Board. The local authority noted the feedback, which influenced their approach to a cost-of-living response. The local authority response has supported many of our most vulnerable residents throughout Quarter 4. We are collaborating with the local authority to design a follow up survey to capture the impact of their response. This will help shape ongoing support.