Bay Health and Care Partners Stakeholder Newsletter Issue 19..png

Bay Health and Care Partners Stakeholder Newsletter Issue 19

4th January 2023

Welcome to the nineteenth edition of our Bay Health and Care Partners (BHCP) newsletter where we will updateyou every month on the collaborative work that is taking place in Morecambe Bay’s Place-Based Partnership and the outcomes and benefits for communities.

I want to highlight some of the fantastic work taking place through the Careers and Engagement Team. A Holistic Person's Journey through Health and Social Care workshops are being piloted with local primary schools across Morecambe Bay. The learning objective of this session is for Key Stage 2 students to understand all the different professions in a person's journey through Health and Social Care. The sessions have been developed in collaboration with the Lancashire and South Cumbria Primary Care Training Hub and have had positive feedback from participants and teaching staff. The hope is to roll out these workshops across the whole of the ICB. You can read more at the BHCP website here. We look forward to updating you on projects from the Careers and Engagement team in future editions of the newsletter.

Health and care professionals are visiting schools, priority wards and supermarkets over the coming weeks, where they will offer people advice and support to help them over winter. The HARRI (Health, Advice, Recovery, Resilience and Information) bus tour will next visit Asda, at Walney Road, Barrow-in-Furness, LA14 5UG, on Thursday 19 January between 11am and 2pm. You can find out more about the tour at the BHCP website here.

Our Integrated Care Communities are doing a fantastic job supporting our rural and more isolated communities. Hundreds of health checks have been carried out with farmers and their families including full NHS checks and conversations around mental health. You can read the full story at the BHCP website here.

I am delighted to see that expectant parents across Lancashire and South Cumbria now have access to an app that will store all their maternity notes, rather than needing to carry around a bulky paper file. The NHS in Lancashire and South Cumbria has joined Badgernet, a portal for clinical staff, which provides an app for parents called BadgerNotes. You can read the full story at Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB's website here. 

Lastly, I would like to congratulate The Well Communities on celebrating a huge milestone. The Well celebrated its tenth anniversary in November with the launch of a book by founder Dave Higham. The not-for-profit community interest company has helped hundreds of local people recovering from drug and alcohol addiction with therapy, counselling, peer mentoring, employment training and social activities. You can read the full story at the BHCP website here.

Prof Mike Thomas, Chair for BHCP

Partners Transforming Services 

Every month we will explore a different area of our programmes of work that are transforming services. This month we are highlighting digital transformations in community dentistry services across Morecambe Bay. The Microsoft HoloLens 2  has been introduced to support patients with learning and physical disabilities who require a specialist consultation or can only be examined under general anaesthetic. You can read the full story at the BHCP website here.

Listening to our communities 

The voices of our communities are central to our new way of working. In this edition, we would like to highlight upcoming research sessions which aim to gain real insights from practitioners to help shape the Family Hubs Network.

Lancaster District CVS is working in partnership with healthcare colleagues to launch a new project funded by the BHCP Population Health Investment Fund which will create a directory of services delivered in our community, available
online for everyone to use. Alongside this, a social prescribing hub and link Lancashire County Council has created several opportunities for staff in Lancaster, where frontline practitioners will be given an opportunity to share their valuable insights around current pathways to access family support across Lancashire, and to gather further insight relating to district demand, strengths and challenges, around access, connections and relationships.

The hope is that through shining a bright and sustainable light on what is already happening and highlighting any gaps that can be hopefully filled by the community of services, the Family Hub Networks will become more easily recognisable, robust and accessible for all, for years to come. The focus groups for Lancaster Practitioners will take place via MS Teams on the following dates:

  • Monday 16 January 2023, from 10am to 11am
  • Thursday 19 January, from 3.30pm to 4.30pm

Login details can be found at the BHCP website here.

GP focus with Dr Arun Thimmiah 

Our GPs are an important part of Bay Health Care Partners and here our GPs and primary care colleagues have the opportunity to talk about issues and specialties that they are working on or interested in. This month, Dr Arun Thimmiah gives advice and support about cervical cancer and the importance of cervical screening. Cervical Cancer Prevention Week takes place between 23 and 29 January. You can read the full story at the BHCP website here.

The spotlight on...

Every month we will feature a different voluntary, community, faith sector or Social Enterprise (VCFSE) organisation across the Bay. This time the spotlight is on...Lancaster District CVS Directory.

Lancaster District CVS is working in partnership with healthcare colleagues to launch a new project funded by the BHCP Population Health Investment Fund which will create a directory of services delivered in our community, available online for everyone to use. Alongside this, a social prescribing hub and link worker inside LDCVS is being set up to receive electronic referrals from staff in GP surgeries to help patients find the non-clinical support they need. You can read the full story at the BHCP website here.

Celebrating our teams 

There are a variety of roles across BHCP and other organisations we work with in the community. Here we shine the spotlight on the people who carry out a range of roles to keep our communities healthy and supported.

Jodie Woodburn is a Social Prescriber for Bay Integrated Care Community and Bay Primary Care Network. Jodie works with people to help them to improve their health and wellbeing as well as connect them to local community groups and activities that interest them. You can read the full case study at the BHCP website here.

ICCs update 

Our Integrated Care Communities (ICCs) are integrated teams of health and care workers, voluntary organisations and wider community assets who work together to aim to improve physical and mental health outcomes, promote wellbeing and reduce health inequalities across an entire population.

A Breathe Easy group will launch at Grange Health Centre on Tuesday 17 January between 1pm and 3pm. The group will offer people with long-term respiratory conditions such as asthma, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and Interstitial Lung Disease advice and support from health and care professionals.

You can read the full story and find more information about the group at the BHCP website here.

Top Stories from our partners 

***Improving Together newsletter Issue 5
***Latest blogs New Hospitals Programme

This newsletter is produced by the BHCP Communications and Engagement Team. If you would like to submit a story please contact Michelle Jordan, Ivan Drozdov and Karen Evans at BHCP.Communcations@mbht.nhs.uk

If you would like to leave feedback click here. To subscribe to the newsletter click here. 

A PDF version of the newsletter is available here. 

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