News

29 September 2023

The conference will enable delegates to share ideas, connect with and inspire others to take action for residents over the age of 50, who will make up nearly half of our population in the coming years. The conference will showcase the great work already taking place that can be expanded and replicated across the county to create an Age Friendly Lincolnshire, an aspiration shaped by Lincolnshire stakeholders.

As we strive to ensure that Lincolnshire’s residents can age well, we particularly want to encourage our local political leaders, those that can influence and action change, senior leaders, and those responsible for fostering or supporting Age-friendly approaches, to attend and support the work being undertaken that links into our national strategic partnership with the Centre for Ageing Better.

This in-person conference will bring stakeholders together from different areas of the county, across various sectors, to share good practice and ideas, connect with peers and programmes and inspire all to take action in implementing the Age Friendly Lincolnshire pledge. This conference may be of particular interest to those with a remit around housing, employment, community development and tackling inequalities, or a role in supporting or delivering services for those who are 50+, including local authorities, housing providers, health services, community and voluntary organisations.

To book your place at the Age Friendly Lincolnshire Annual Conference on 29 September 2023 via this link: AFL Conference 2023.

Pilgrim Hospital

Welcome to the launch of a public consultation around the future of the children’s (paediatric) service at Pilgrim Hospital in Boston.

For a number of years, the hospital’s paediatric service faced challenges due to staffing shortages.

This resulted in the service model being adapted from a children’s inpatient ward to a 12-hour Paediatric Assessment Unit on a temporary basis in August 2018.

Since then, the service has been developed further and has now become an example of best practice, offering an early assessment model without any constraints on length of stay. This has enabled the vast majority of Boston-area children to be cared for at the hospital whilst delivering a lower length of stay than prior to 2018.

The public consultation is about confirming this as the permanent model for the service (subject to public support), to give certainty around the long term future of the service, to help with staff recruitment and also ensure ongoing support for Boston-area children and their families.

You are invited to share your views on the proposals, and to encourage any colleagues, friends or other interested parties to do the same.

Please click this link to see an outline of the proposals, and detail of how you can have your say to help us in making a decision about the future of these services.

Details are also available on our Trust website.

HWLincs & Integrated Care Board for Lincolnshire

HWLincs is delighted and privileged to be delivering year 2 of the Voices Bereavement Survey on behalf of the Integrated Care Board for Lincolnshire.  Following the feedback provided in year 1, the palliative and end of life teams have already been working to make changes.

These changes recognised the voices of family, loved ones and carers, and specifically looked to improve:

• The availability of information and support
• The quality of conversations with patients and their loved ones through improved and more training for professionals
• The expansion of the palliative single point of access delivering better coordinated care.

We would like to encourage you to complete the survey if you have been bereaved within the last 12 months or share if you feel there is someone who would be willing to have their voice heard on behalf of their loved ones, the survey takes between 10 and 35 minutes (depending on experiences), and every minute is a valuable insight for those planning and delivering palliative and end of life care.

The digital Voices survey is available now and can be found here, if anyone wishes to receive a hard copy please email enquiries@hwlincs.co.uk requesting a hard copy with name and postal address information.

https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/VOICESLincs2023/

Voices Leaflet pdf

With your help we can support the future of care for future patients and their families and carers.

General Overview – Significant impacts are probable across the health and social care sector due to the high temperatures, including: observed increase in mortality across the population likely, particularly in the 65+ age group or those with health conditions, but impacts may also been seen in younger age groups; increase demand for remote health care services likely; internal temperatures in care settings (hospitals and care homes) may exceed recommended threshold for clinical risk assessment; impact on ability of services to be delivered due to heat effects on workforce possible and many indoor environments likely to be overheating, risk to vulnerable people living independently in community as well as in care settings; medicines management issues; staffing issues due to external factors (e.g. transport); cross system demand for temporary AC capacity exceeded possible and other sectors starting to observe impacts (e.g. travel delays)

YELLOW Heat-Health Alert – (Hot weather response) has been updated for the following regions: North East, North West, Yorkshire and The Humber and London and is in effect between 09/06/2023 at 09:00 and 12/06/2023 at 09:00.

AMBER Heat-Health Alert – (Enhanced hot weather response) has been updated for the following regions: East Midlands, West Midlands, East of England, South East and South West and is in effect between 09/06/2023 at 09:00 and 12/06/2023 at 09:00.

Organisations providing health and social care should be aware of the advice and guidance set out in the Adverse Weather and Health Plan, as to the actions necessary before and during a Heat-Health Alert Period. Specific advice is available in the links below.

Heat-Health Alerts are sent to the Chief Executive of every Health Trust provider of NHS commissioned care, Local Authority and Social Care Organisation in England. If you would like to add a colleague to receive these alerts, please go to: https://forms.office.com/e/Bw6mjea6qa. Feel free to share this link within your organisation, or anyone else you think may benefit from this service. If you would like to update your registration details, please complete the form here: Update registration details. If you have questions or technical problems with the subscription service, please complete the form here: Subscription enquiries.

The Heat-Health Alert Service operates in England from 1 June to 30 September each year, in partnership with the Met Office. This is the period when high temperatures are likely to occur. However, should high temperatures be observed or expected outside of this period, an extraordinary Heat-Health Alert will be issued and stakeholders are advised to take the usual public health actions.

To aid local planning, Local Resilience Forum (LRFs) and their regions can be found here: Guidance – Local Resilience Forums: Contact Details.

Economic Resources Sub-Group

This year our Pension Credit Week of Action takes place between 12 and 16 June and we are urging people to check their eligibility and claim. 
  
Pension Credit gives people extra money to help with their living costs if they are over State Pension age and on a low income. Pension Credit can also provide access to a range of other benefits such as help with housing costs, council tax, heating bills and for those aged 75 or over, a free TV licence. 
  
Although take up of Pension Credit is at the highest level since 2010, there are still too many people missing out. 
  
The Pension Credit Toolkit is available now, so stakeholders can start planning communications. Our ‘Everyone’s an Advocate’ campaign recognises that friends and family of people over State Pension age can play an important role in raising awareness of Pension Credit. We therefore encourage you to also highlight Pension Credit among your own internal staff networks using assets in the toolkit. There will also be new content during the week of action across our social media channels including @DWPgovuk.   

Welcome to my fourth annual report as Director of Public Health, but my first for the whole of Greater Lincolnshire. Lincolnshire and neighbouring authorities of North and North East Lincolnshire have faced huge public health challenges over the past few years in steering residents through the Covid-19 pandemic as safely as possible.

As we have emerged more fully from the restrictions that the pandemic brought to us all, we have faced new challenges, not least the mental wellbeing and other health related issues arising from periods of lockdown. And new concerns have arisen such as the cost of living challenge brought about by the economic crisis.

Over recent years, previous annual reports have centred on themes such as the burden of disease, response to the pandemic and the impact of Covid-19 on children and young peoples’ health and wellbeing. The Chief Medical Officer’s annual report for 2021 highlighted coastal communities as having some of the worst health outcomes in England and the lack of data and understanding of the different communities in areas which would help plan local strategies and improve outcomes for health. Both Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire were “coastal case studies” in Professor Whitty’s report.

Greater Lincolnshire typically has large areas of rural land and urban centres of differing sizes. So having analysed local data, this report identifies the four types of community we have – urban centre, urban industrial, coastal community and rural and market town – and the differences and opportunities for health and wellbeing.

There are significant challenges for preventing ill health and improving life expectancy across Greater Lincolnshire. Each community has different characteristics and opportunities that lead to different health outcomes. But the challenges can also have common themes across the region. Poor housing and fuel poverty require different solutions in urban and rural areas but is a consistent problem. The lack of a teaching hospital means recruitment and retainment of a health and care workforce is a challenge over all of Greater Lincolnshire, although it is felt more acutely in coastal strips. Poor air quality not only affects urban areas but agricultural air pollution is also a growing concern.

The report sets out how different health needs in the four types of community need different approaches. The local environment and its assets also need to be harnessed to improve health and wellbeing in our communities. We live in a beautiful, green and blue county and we should maximise the health and wellbeing benefits of being outdoors in the countryside and along our coastline and rivers.
There are also ways in which we can maximise training opportunities and recruitment to health and care, flexing the workforce to improve health and wellbeing and the support available. By developing a better understanding of the complexity of our local communities we can target and tailor our approach to prevention and treatment which meets the needs of local people.

Finally, I’d like to acknowledge and thank all of those who have supported the writing and production of this year’s Director of Public
Health Annual Report.

Derek Ward
Director of Public Health for Greater Lincolnshire

To read the report in full please follow this link.

DPH-Annual-Report-Final_2022

Park Springs Community Centre in Gainsborough

Thursday – 15 June

Lincolnshire NHS Maternity and Neonatal services will be hosting a free event at Park Springs Community Centre in Gainsborough on Thursday June 15th from 10am to 3pm.

The event is open to anyone who is pregnant, planning to become pregnant, or has recently given birth, as well as their partners and families. There will be over 30 services there to provide support and resources for attendees, including midwives, health visitors, infant feeding programme, children’s services, financial support, perinatal mental health support etc. Including health advice, Dad pads, financial and parental support, mental health support, advice on vaccines, breast and bottle feeding, smoking cessation, fitness for pregnancy, career advice, and more.

There will also be children’s activities, including face painting, free refreshments for the adults and lunches for the children.

Additionally, the event will feature a food and clothes bank, free activities and lunches for children, and refreshments for adults. Please pop along, we would love to see you there.

Here is a link to our Facebook post https://fb.watch/l2Et4AWwJf/ or you can find it to share on our Facebook page.

New resources

Every One are really excited to announce that they have created a NEW resource to support young carers of substance misuse (YCSM).  Working with partners and young carers to develop this resource it engages young people and supports professionals to not only identify the young carer role but be able to signpost to resources and support around that Young Carers & Substance Misuse – Every-One

The resource booklet and postcards are available for you to download and print on the link above.  

If you have any queries, please don’t hesitate to contact hello@every-one.org.uk or Paula Batchelor paula.batchelor@every-one.org.uk

6th of June

The “What Matters To You?” campaign is about listening and hopefully understanding what matters to a person within the larger context of their life. 

Who is this campaign aimed at?     
Everyone!

What is it about?    
This is a global movement with the simple goal of encouraging meaningful conversations between patients, caregivers, families and their health and social care providers.  It’s evidenced that “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.”  One of the main aims of ‘What matters to you?’ is to help us develop greater intent to simply listen, to listen deeply and to understand. ‘What matters to you?’ is an opportunity to stop and think a little more about how we are listening, who we are listening too and what we are doing as a result.

Why should we care?    
Providing person-centered care is important because it results in better outcomes for people and greater satisfaction with care. Asking “What Matters to You?” supports this by putting the person’s voice at the centre of care, by focusing on what matters to them.

What difference does it make?    
Staff and caregivers at diverse organizations across multiple roles have shared that “asking,” “listening,” and “doing” what matters empowers them to address what is most important to the people they care for, making their work more meaningful.  While burnout can adversely impact both provider satisfaction at work and job tenure, growing evidence supports that feeling your work has “purpose,” protects against burnout and is associated with more “joy in work.”

How do I get involved?

Help us celebrate ‘What matters to You?’ Day on June 6th

You can download the ‘What Matters To You?’ posters below, add your individual or team’s details and make a display in your workspace for everyone to see.  

Once you have created a teams display, take a picture and upload to social media using the #WMTY23 and #ItsAllAboutPeople so we can see who is getting involved and changing the conversations.

The aim of these posters is to help you and your colleagues get to know each other a little more, along with the people you support and care for.  We hope this stimulates conversations between people to really share what matters and listen to what is important to them.

WMTY Team Poster.pdf

WMTY Individual Poster.pdf

Visit whatmatterstoyou.scot or https://www.itsallaboutpeople.info/get-involved/what-matters-you-campaign to find out how you can get involved in this valuable movement.

University of Lincoln

28th June Lincoln Medical School 9.30 am – 12.30 pm.

Do you work in government, the health sector, or the not-for-profit/charity sector?

Are you keen to know more about how you can use use research and evaluation to underpin the work you do and the programmes you deliver?

Do you have to commission research or evaluations in your role?

This half day symposium will introduce you to:

The importance of research and evaluation for you and your organisation.

Tips for delivering high quality research on a budget.

Things to think about when commissioning research and evaluation.

Some common research and evaluation methodologies.

There will also be time to meet academics working in your field, to hear organisations who have done research or evaluation with the university before and to find out more about opportunities for collaboration with university.

For further details visit: https://lncn.ac/resintro