Agenda item

To receive an update on the North Central London (NCL) Inequalities Fund (IF) Programme and the projects within the Programme that support Haringey residents and patients.

Ms Rachel Lissuaer, Ms Akudo Okereafor, Ms Stephanie Otuoacheampong and Mr Paul Allen presented the item.

The meeting heard that:

• The use of the 111 phone service was a good resource. It had improved

over time and had performed well. The 111 phone service needed to be

used in the right situation and 999 was advised to be used in more

urgent or life-threatening situations.

• Parent volunteers and champions had played a critical role and they had

been involved with the programme and had contributed significantly.

They attended Maternity Voice partnerships and would be invited onto

interview panels and Board meetings.

• Some champions leads were previously volunteers and were trained.

• The ABC Parent programme was on social media including Twitter,

Instagram and WhatsApp groups.

• In terms of mainstreaming, there was a programme which provided

speech, language and communications within a children’s centre and

nursery. This programme modelled universal support in speech,

language and communication. Some testing was being done to see if it

was possible to use it as a way of reducing people’s reliance on having

Educational Health Care Plans (EHCPs) as a way of getting speech,

language, and communication input which often happened later in the

child’s development due to having to wait through the process of trying

to get the EHCPs. A business case had been constructed between

Whittington Hospital, the ICB and the Council in moving towards a

universal model.

• This programme was useful for having a preventative and supportive

network that could help avoid a crisis.

• Long term and consistent funding was required to provide security and

increasing access for people to be able to benefit across the most

vulnerable and needy communities.

• Advertising was mostly done in the east of the borough. There were

families in the area that suffered deprivation. Advertising had been done

in local areas such as the barbershops, pharmacies, supermarket,

churches and other places of worship to reach out to all families across

the demographic.

• People from all backgrounds had been affected by the cost of living, but

data showed that certain communities had worse outcomes.

• Based on a recent survey, the data showed that 76% of service users

were not from a White British or White Irish background.

• Efforts being taken to become more mainstream was reliant on

collaborative work and building pathways with partners. However, there

was a lot of stigma associated to mental health and this was counterproductive to the progress of the work being done. Attempts had been

made to dilute the stigma by working with different organisations such as

attending community events and sharing any learning with grassroots

organisations.

• Efforts had been made on building trust with the community by

collaborating with faith-based projects or gender-based projects.

• Funding was important to sustainable projects and other developmental

collaborations.

• Due to funding constraints, there had been a lack of analytical support

which was provided by local authorities. It would be useful to have an

evidence-based approach in order to demonstrate the use of

preventative based projects.

• An approach had been proposed regarding how to formulate how an

evidence base could be built around the differentiation between early

prevention to secondary prevention and onwards. This would help to

understand the impact on underserved communities and understand

where the resources were being allocated.

• Investing in underserved communities and groups was a good

investment for the wider system as there was a greater level of need and

therefore a greater opportunity to mitigate social care utilisation.

• A wider conversation needed to be held on inequalities funding and the

wider funding available in the system and ensure that the funding was

proportionate to the needs in the borough.

RESOLVED:

That the report be noted.