This service will use care & support planning conversations to enable people to feel confident about living with their long term health conditions or as a carer. This might be through coaching conversations, connecting them with local community based activities or helping them to navigate and access other services, resources and support.
From April 2019, support for people with long term health conditions and carers to feel more confident about self-managing will be provided through a comprehensive service across Dorset. Based in primary care and an integral part of local communities across each locality, this health coaching and social prescribing support can improve individual's confidence, their health and wellbeing as well as reduce inappropriate use of health services.
Dorset CCG are pleased to announce that the contract for the provision of Non-clinical Health Coaching and Social Prescribing for people with Long Term Conditions and Carers has been awarded to Help & Care in partnership with Dorset HealthCare NHS Foundation Trust and the Dorset Mental Health Forum.
This new service delivers some of the key components of Personalised Care, a nationally championed approach to care and support for people, based on what matters to them and their individual strengths and needs. NHS England describe 'personalised care' as enabling people to have choice and control over their health, care and lives. It is a core component of the approach to care and support in Dorset, as described in the Our Dorset programme (ICS).
The Dorset Self-Management Framework brings together the local self-management support (non-clinical health coaching, social prescribing and supported navigation) for people with long term health conditions and people who are carers. As providers of this new holistic, non-clinical and person-centred service, Help & Care's work is integral to both local communities and health and social care services.
Help & Care is passionate about making a difference and enabling people and communities to live the lives they choose. A third sector organisation based in Bournemouth, Help & Care has been working locally and across South-Central England for over 30 years providing coaching, social prescribing, advocacy, befriending, and other information and support services. They have partnered with Dorset Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, the main local provider of community and mental health services, and with Dorset Mental Health Forum, the main local voluntary sector user-led organisation campaigning for and providing support for people with mental health conditions.
This service will use care & support planning conversations as the gateway to enable people to feel confident about living with their long term health conditions or as a carer. This might be through coaching conversations, connecting them with local community based activities or helping them to navigate and access other services, resources and support.
The new service will be provided across Dorset, Poole and Bournemouth at a locality level, being based primarily in GP surgeries. Help & Care has strategic and working relationships across the Integrated Community and Primary Care Services (ICPCS) programme, and wider ICS agenda to support the integration of this new service in and beyond the NHS.
Help & Care have a strong track record of delivering these services- with over 5 years providing the existing My Health My Way service (non-clinical health coaching) and over 12 years with the POPP service (providing social prescribing). The new service also builds on the work done by Bournemouth CVS and Poole Wellbeing Collaborative and their respective supported navigation and social prescribing services, which will conclude in March as the new service starts.
Together with Dorset Healthcare and Dorset Mental Health Forum, Help & Care are working through a mobilisation phase to deliver the new combined service. This includes working closely with individual localities to make sure it is tailored to local communities, and developing the workforce and systems to support the service and its users.
Mark Sharman, Chief Executive, Help & Care:
"Help & Care are delighted to have been awarded the contract with our partners. If we are to achieve the aspiration of delivering genuine personalised support embedded in current services, we recognised we could not do this in isolation. Our challenge now is to be part of the culture shift to do things differently and as local organisations add real value to the people and communities of Dorset"
Eugine Yafele, Chief Executive of Dorset HealthCare:
"I am delighted that we are working with Help & Care and Dorset Mental Health Forum to provide this important new service. I believe this kind of support for people managing long term health conditions and for carers can be life-changing. It's an excellent example of health working closely with community and voluntary organisations to support people in managing the issues they face and is very much in line with the NHS long-term plan."
Becky Aldridge, Chief Executive, Dorset Mental Health Forum:
"The Dorset Mental Health Forum is delighted to be a partner in delivering this contract. We feel this partnership provides a welcomed opportunity to work with people in the context of their lives and circumstances. We understand the inextricable link between physical and mental health issues and are committed to ensuring that people are able to access all of the opportunities that life can provide, regardless of what challenges they may face. Working together as a community to provide support and information, challenge stigma and ultimately to provide easily accessible, quality support for the people of Dorset."
The phased roll out of the new service will commence 1st April. You'll be hearing from Help & Care with more detail over the coming months, as they both co-design the operational arrangements for each locality, and also share information about referrals from all teams within and beyond the NHS. If you wish to contact them, please email the team at ICSadmin@helpandcare.org.uk.