New report reveals how charities can support the prevention agenda

The Health Service Journal report, based on the “Making the best use of charities to support the prevention agenda of the NHS Long Term Plan” roundtable event staged in partnership with us, highlights the successes to date, future opportunities and ongoing challenges to leveraging the third sector’s skills and ideas to improve prevention.

Our Charity and Medical Director, Dr Davina Deniszczyc, who was a participant at the roundtable, said: “The debate was fascinating because we had influential leaders from the charity world, NHS and local government who were clearly enthusiastic about the opportunities but realistic and engaged with the debate on how the NHS can make the most of working with the third sector.

“Nuffield Health run a number of subsidised flagship programmes which widen access to our services and address unmet health needs in a way that helps reduce pressures on the NHS.

“For example our Joint Pain Programme is an exercise-based course which helps arthritis sufferers manage their condition, get active and avoid the need for hospital treatment, and SWAP – our free Schools Wellbeing Activity Programme - provides thousands of pupils with the tools they need to manage their health with modules on sleep, eating, exercise and mental health.”

Roundtable findings

The roundtable consensus was that whilst the NHS, and new commissioning structures, were starting to appreciate what charities can do towards the prevention agenda, there was much work to be done to fully realise the opportunities. For this to happen the participants identified the need for:

• leaders to collaborate flexibly around defined goals
• sharing of best practice to scale up charity activities
• changing attitudes, with NHS leaders being brave and taking some risks within the legislative and regulatory frameworks
• a shift in focus by commissioners from seeking service providers for defined contracts to enabling charities to help people live happy, independent and healthy lives

To read the full report, please click here; or to see a video review of the roundtable please click here.

To find out more about our flagship programmes click here.

Last updated Tuesday 14 January 2020

First published on Tuesday 14 January 2020