As an Integrated Care Board we are in a unique position to build on and strengthen our relationships with our local VCSE, people and communities.
We are committed to ensuring we empower local communities to raise their voice, to engage with us in a way that suits them, to be part of shaping local services and to build on strength-based approaches and community empowerment models – supporting local communities to identify the outcomes which matter to them and the solutions to addressing these outcomes.
We are committed to collaborating with the VCSE. It is vital we build on existing strong relationships with the VCSE sector and on best practice approaches to partnership working, particularly harnessing the experience of local authority colleagues. We must also look to remove some of the barriers that currently make it difficult for VCSE organisations to collaborate with us as strategic partners. Doing so will ensure the sector’s unique capabilities are an integral part of how the new health and care system operates, and will allow us to work together to tackle health inequalities in a way that is meaningful for our communities.
We have developed two strategies to demonstrate our commitment to working with our local communities and VCSE.
Both strategies below have been developed in collaboration with a range of partners, including colleagues across NCL Integrated Care Board and Systems (this includes our five Place Based Partnerships), our joint commissioners, local Council Voluntary and Community (VCSE) sector teams and colleagues from VCSE. The VCSE Strategy has been co-developed with the NCL VCSE Alliance.
Additionally, over the last two years we have had open conversations with local people around what health and wellbeing means to them, what they want from services, and the impact of the pandemic. These conversations have directly informed and fed into the foundations of these strategies.
While the strategies set a strategic approach at an NCL-level, we recognise much of this activity will be delivered at neighbourhood and place level – and we build on existing best practice, in particular the experience of our Local Authorities, and around the Place-Based Partnerships in each borough. The strategies set out our ambitions for the long-term.
Both strategies can be found below: