Improving Lives Initiative

1.Background

1.1 The proposal for the Community Solutions Improving Lives Initiative (ILI) was developed collaboratively during 2022-23 with:

• the Community Solutions Governance Group
• HSCNL Core Management team
• NHS Lanarkshire Health Improvement senior staff
• Macmillan Cancer Care

1.1.1 This development was informed by wider learning and engagement through the Community Solutions programme in recent years.

1.1.2 Agreement was supported through development and discussion of a SBAR (Situation, Background, Action, Recommendation), which was agreed by The Community Solutions Governance Group in Sept. 2022 and approved in December 2022 by HSCNL Core Management Team.

1.2 Funding for ILI comes from the following sources, with a combined budget of £2.4m to support piloting over a 24-month period (plus staff time to support initial development and set up.)

1.2.1 HSCNL Community Solutions recurring funding for Locality Hosts and the budget for the Locality Activity Fund.

1.2.2 £1.2 million fixed term “Prevention and Early Intervention” funding for 24 months from Health & Social Care North Lanarkshire (HSCNL) (Approved by the North Lanarkshire Integrated Joint Board in February 2022 as part of an “Improving Communities Business Case”.

1.2.3 Funding received from through NHS Lanarkshire awarded by NHS Charities Together for a “Connecting Communities for Health: Investing in Lanarkshire’s Social Prescribing Network”.

1.2.4 Funding from the Scottish Government and Macmillan Cancer Support as part of a National Initiative to roll out the Improving Cancer Journey to all Local Authorities across Scotland.

2.ILI Aim

2.1 To help improve people’s physical, mental and social wellbeing through a locally co-ordinated approach to providing community-based support for vulnerable and equality groups as set out in the Community Solutions strategy and summarised below in 2.1.1 and 2.1.2.

2.1.1 People with health challenges and/or wellbeing crisis: provide “three conversations” and “social prescribing” approaches to aid people’s “recovery” and improve their wellbeing by helping them:

• Express their support needs and priorities (self-directed support)
• Strengthen their capacity for adopting and sustaining suitable self-management approaches
• Access urgent and longer-term healthy living and social support (which may include access to community-based healthy living activities and/or referral to more formal services

2.1.2 Vulnerable and equality groups: will be helped to access community-based healthy living support and activities including:

• Active travel
• Harm minimisation from alcohol, drugs and tobacco, including smoke-free homes and communities
• Healthy diets for all ages, including breastfeeding
• Good sleep
• Nature connectedness
• Physical activity
• Supportive relationships and social connections, including befriending.

3.ILI Approach/ Activities

3.1 Increased funding for 24 months for our six Community Solutions locality hosts (complementing their recurrent funding) to enable them to do following work in addition to their existing locality support work.

• Improve engagement with the Community and Voluntary Sector (CVS) within their Localities.
• Supporting the adoption of the ALISS (A Local Information System for Scotland) service directory
• Supporting the work of the Community Connectors (see below)
• Strengthening links between the Community Solutions and Community Planning at locality level.

3.2 Increased funding for the Community Solutions Locality Activity Fund (LAF) for 24 months (complementing recurrent funding) to increase small grant funding for local CVS organisations to improve support for local people  This will mean the LAF budget will increase from £180,000 a year across the six localities to  £300,000 a year for 24 months.

3.3 Appointment of a team of 10* Community Connectors to support vulnerable people in the community by using the Three Conversations Model.  This will include people referred through the Improving Cancer Journey to connect them to non-clinical support provided by CVS organisations (social prescribing).

* Due to the complex nature of the partnership, discussion is still ongoing to finalise the funding to increase the number of Community Connectors from 6 to 10, with the funding from the Improving the Cancer Journey project.  The deployment of the Community Connectors is also subject to an allocation process that is still to take place.

4.Performance Management, Evaluation, Learning and Improvement (PMELI)

Performance management and evaluation of the ILI pilot will be supported by the new Community Solutions PMELI Framework, which was agreed by the Governance Group in Sept. 2022 and launched in April 2023.  Learning and improvement will be supported during the delivery phase and will inform future plans and investment.