{"id":54,"date":"2015-11-26T12:11:22","date_gmt":"2015-11-26T12:11:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alisonseabrooke.uk\/?p=54"},"modified":"2015-11-26T12:11:22","modified_gmt":"2015-11-26T12:11:22","slug":"a-matter-of-interpretation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alisonseabrooke.uk\/?p=54","title":{"rendered":"A matter of interpretation"},"content":{"rendered":"

When philosopher Desiderius Erasmus\u00a0said\u00a0Prevention is better than cure<\/i>, I doubt he thought we would still be stating the obvious over 500 years later.<\/span><\/p>\n

Chapter two of the NHS\u00a0Five Year Forward View<\/a>\u00a0is dedicated to \u2018Getting serious about prevention\u2019 and creating a \u2018new relationship with patients and communities\u2019. It references Derek Wanless\u2019 health review of twelve years ago, which\u00a0\u2018warned that unless the country took prevention seriously we would be faced with a sharply rising burden of avoidable illness. That warning has not been heeded – and the NHS is on the hook for the consequences.\u2019<\/i>\u00a0At least Erasmus and Wanless agree.<\/span><\/p>\n

The scale of the challenge is huge and emerging from this is the growing debate about the future of community care. In order to prevent \u2018avoidable illness\u2019 we all can assume there needs to be a whole community approach to prevention. The future of the NHS surely depends on people, young and old, being able to manage their health in a way that doesn\u2019t lean so much on the wonderful, but costly health system we all applaud.\u00a0 But they can\u2019t and won\u2019t be able to do it alone.<\/span><\/p>\n

Community intervention in public health is essential and thankfully is already happening. \u00a0This is something we at the\u00a0Community Development Foundation<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0looked at for our 2014 research report\u00a0Tailor-made,<\/i>\u00a0that can be found\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0on the SCIE website. We reviewed over 130 sources of literature bringing together evidence and stories of the community sector\u2019s contribution to people\u2019s lives and society as a whole. The title of the research perfectly describes what is special about these groups. They evolve out of community needs, are led by local people and serve the people on their doorsteps. As a result, they provide services and activities that are a perfect fit for their communities.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of the striking findings of the research are the eight distinctive characteristics of these small groups: volunteers and staff are\u00a0needs-based<\/b>\u00a0and\u00a0expert<\/b>\u00a0often with first-hand experience of the issues facing their beneficiaries. Because of this and their local nature they are\u00a0trusted<\/b>. They are also\u00a0holistic \u2013<\/b>\u00a0individual needs are not segmented into social policy categories, such as health or housing \u2013 and they are\u00a0connected<\/b>\u00a0to their community, support the whole person and co-ordinate care across different providers. As a result of all of this they are\u00a0committed<\/b>\u00a0and\u00a0value for money<\/b>. Our\u00a0dedicated microsite<\/a>\u00a0brings this to life with health and wellbeing case studies.<\/span><\/p>\n

But how many public or private sector providers could claim these characteristics for their own organisation? How can we deepen community-based care and increase collaboration between healthcare professionals and these embedded local resource and, through them, shift from reactive to preventative responses? We have a good idea of the scale of the problem, from tackling obesity to caring for an aging population, so what is the scale of the opportunity for community-led interventions?<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2010 the\u00a0Third Sector Resource Centre\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0review of the UK\u2019s \u2018under the radar groups\u2019 it was estimated there were 600,000 \u2013 900,000 micro and small volunteer-led groups. Ninety-five per cent of these community-based organisations had an annual income of less than \u00a32,000; 51% of registered charities were described as micros with an annual income of less than \u00a310,000. These income-light groups form the largest proportion of the wider voluntary and community sector and are incredibly resourceful. And in 2011\u00a0The Kings Fund<\/a>\u00a0identified just under a quarter (39,340) of England\u2019s \u00a3171,000 voluntary and community sector organisations were involved in the provision of adult health and\/or social care and support services. Taking all of this data into account, I would say that the opportunity is huge.<\/span><\/p>\n

This blog was first published on the SCIE Prevention Library Forum<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When philosopher Desiderius Erasmus said Prevention is better than cure, I doubt he thought we would still be stating the obvious over 500 years later. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[58,105,167,189],"class_list":["post-54","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-blog","tag-community-led-health-care","tag-health","tag-social-care","tag-value-of-community-sector"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alisonseabrooke.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alisonseabrooke.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alisonseabrooke.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alisonseabrooke.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alisonseabrooke.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alisonseabrooke.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alisonseabrooke.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alisonseabrooke.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alisonseabrooke.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}