Publish date: 26 July 2024
NHS trust vows to work more closely with charities and community organisations
Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust held an engagement event with organisations from the voluntary and community sector to learn how to work better together as partners.
The first Northumbria Café engagement event with the sector took place in January 2024 when 25 organisations attended to offer their views and opinions on a number of key issues for communities in Northumberland and North Tyneside.
Due to the success of this event, the second café was held in July at the new Health and Care Academy with 31 organisations represented by more than 50 attendees.
The trust reported on the impact of the first event and how that engagement session informed the patient charter with examples such as making clinical messaging simpler to match the reading levels of people in our community.
The event was opened by the trust’s chief executive, Birju Bartoli, with a commitment to continuing the Northumbria Café work. This was followed by speakers explaining current projects including tackling health inequalities, the new clinical strategy and diversity.
Attendees then took part in themed work looking at how people and wider organisations and systems could work better. This included some anonymised case studies and how more joined-up thinking could lead to better outcomes for patients and communities.
A number of themes emerged including how information could be better shared, how looking at a more people/patient-centred approach could help and how community-based groups could help people both manage and cope with conditions in the community, thereby easing some pressures on health and social care.
The next steps for the trust will be to incorporate this into the clinical strategy.
Chief executive, Birju Bartoli, said: “At Northumbria Healthcare, we are always striving to improve our services and listening to the voices in our local community is how we continue to move forward. Everyone who attended these events has demonstrated their commitment to shaping the future of the healthcare and supporting patient care.
“We’re all very excited about this work and want to build even closer links with organisations in the third sector to make sure everyone has their say. We're looking closely at how our community wants to receive healthcare services, both now and in the future, and understand how we can start shaping all this together.”
Director of communications Ross Wigham added: “This was a really positive event and it was great to see so many people make the time to attend and share their views with us. Local, community engagement is something that's very important to us and we've been making real strides to get back to where we were before the pandemic with regular face-to-face sessions.
“The voluntary and community sector forms such an important part of the support networks around health and care and we increasingly value these relationships. Coming together in this way will help us improve services and work together more effectively for people in Northumberland and North Tyneside.”
The trust will be developing further Café style events, including taking the Northumbria Café out into communities in the Berwick, Hexham and North Tyneside areas.
Media contact
Louise Alexander, social media and digital assistant
Louise.Alexander@northumbria-healthcare.nhs.uk