News

Energy saving tips for charities

The Third Sector Network is offering tips for charities to save on their energy usage.

They also offer online workshops, charity networking, events and support. Please see the link at the bottom of this page for further details and to sign up for their newsletter.

This Week: Energy Saving Tips For Charities

1 – Switch Things Off! OK, this is starting pretty basic, but we all fall short on this. Stuff like microwaves, PCs, office printers are often left on or on standby. That digital display on the microwave needs electricity. Add it all together, every day and it adds up, trust us! Switch them off at the plug at night. 2 – Consider an ‘Energy Audit’ If you do a bit of ‘Googling’ you can occasionally find energy providers and other firms offering free assessments of your energy use. A professional comes out, assesses what you’re using and this helps you identify potential savings. 3 – Use Your Curtains and Blinds. Wisely If you let as much sunlight shine in through windows as possible, it warms rooms and reduces the need for heating. But, make sure you’re closing them at sunset too as they help reduce the amount of heat loss through conduction out the window. 4 – Make Hot Drinks in Batches If you are making tea for three people, you don’t need to fill the kettle. Got leftover boiling water in the kettle? Pour the excess into a flask and it’ll be fine for a fresh tea/coffee 30 minutes later. We’re not advocating drinks rationing, but if you boil the (full) kettle 3x less every day, that could save you up to £200 a year! 5 – Invest in Energy Efficient Items Right now, money is tight, we get it. But energy prices aren’t coming down anytime soon, possibly not for years. Older electricals are less energy efficient and investing in energy efficient devices may seem costly now but will save you money in the long term and help with financial sustainability going forwards. Energy savings LED lights pay for themselves eventually!

https://thirdsectornetwork.co.uk/

Survey

Lincolnshire County Council and Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (LPFT) are reviewing the services available locally and have launched a survey inviting children and young people, parents, carers and professionals to share their thoughts.

The feedback will be used to transform and improve services, helping children and young people to live independent, safe, healthy and fulfilling lives.

Families and professionals are being asked to share their views on emotional wellbeing and mental health services for Lincolnshire’s children and young people.

The feedback will be used to transform and improve services, helping children and young people to live independent, safe, healthy and fulfilling lives.

Read more on our website at www.lpft.nhs.uk/CYPsurvey or https://www.letstalk.lincolnshire.gov.uk/children-s-and-young-peoples-mental-health-services-review

CARERS FIRST

Helping unpaid carers to maximise their income and make their money go further, this toolkit gives you all the information that you need to know about the Carers First campaign, Lighten the Load. Lighten the Load aims to raise awareness of the financial support available to carers and increase the number accessing that support.

Please listen to the short mp3 below before accessing the toolkit via the acrobat link.

https://acrobat.adobe.com/link/review?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:abf48c1a-722b-395f-88fa-1a70012cbd24

Further information and videos are available at https://www.carersfirst.org.uk/about-us/what-we-do/campaigns/lightentheload/

Improving Dental Services across Lincolnshire’ is a campaign started by Healthwatch Lincolnshire in response to the number of poor experiences shared with us by residents of Lincolnshire of Dental Service.

Since as far back as 2015, due to the number of poor experiences shared by residents, Healthwatch Lincolnshire has been raising concerns about the decline in access to NHS Dentists in our county.  During this time, Healthwatch have consistently worked closely to raise our concerns with NHS England Midlands Dental Commissioning Team, Media, Healthwatch England, as well as with local and regional dental networks.  

Whilst we all recognise many of the problems with dental services in Lincolnshire, such as commissioning, workforce and our counties geography.  What Healthwatch does see is little or no improvements being actioned.  For example, in our county we have seen increasing numbers of dental practices making the decision to ‘hand-back’ NHS contracts and move to being fully private.

Healthwatch Lincolnshire’s ‘An NHS Dentist 4 all – Improving Dental Services across Lincolnshire’ campaign will run from 1 October 2022 until 31 March 2023.  During this time, they will be raising your concerns both locally and nationally so we need all the help we can get to bring to the attention of as many people as possible, the need for more NHS Dentists in Lincolnshire.

How you can make a difference

• Pledge Your Support and sign up here: https://www.healthwatchlincolnshire.co.uk/nhs-dentist-4-all-improving-dental-services-across-lincolnshire
• Downloadable content to share with the public throughout the campaign
• Encourage local people to have their say through Healthwatch Lincolnshire
• Stay up to date with dental improvements across the county
• Read the experiences of patient’s carers and service users
• Share this with colleagues, partners, constituents, and other interested parties

Find out more – https://www.healthwatchlincolnshire.co.uk/nhs-dentist-4-all-improving-dental-services-across-lincolnshire

Get Involved – Have Your Say

Pledge your support, sign up, share your experiences as well as how you would like to see dental services in Lincolnshire improved.

Have your say https://www.healthwatchlincolnshire.co.uk/sign-nhs-dentist-4-all-improving-dental-services-across-lincolnshire

Looking for information and advice about oral health and dentistry?

Are you having trouble finding an NHS funded dentist? Read our tips on what to do if you’re facing problems.

We will be adding more over the coming months

Find our more https://www.healthwatchlincolnshire.co.uk/advice-and-information/search?keyword=&field_themes_tid%5B%5D=6

Support our campaign: Resources

Use our campaign resources and downloadable’s to support our campaign ‘An NHS Dentist 4 all – Improving Dental Services across Lincolnshire.

Download our resources https://www.healthwatchlincolnshire.co.uk/blog/2022-09-26/support-our-campaign-nhs-dentist-4-all-improving-dental-services-across-lincolnshire

If you need this in another format or would like to discuss anything, please email info@healthwatchlincolnshire.co.uk or call 01205 820 892.

Equally, if you would like to share your experience, good or bad, of Health and Care Services contact us today.

Email info@healthwatchlincolnshire.co.uk or call 01205 820 892.

It’s All About People

Join the members of the Lincolnshire Personalisation team on Thursday 17^th November 10-11am for a virtual ‘I want a life not a service!’ workshop. Social Prescribing and community-based support are vital components of the NHS England Comprehensive Model of Personalised Care. In this workshop we will explore the value of community-based support and consider what it means for each of us, both personally and professionally.

Use this link or email lhnt.itsallaboutpeople@nhs.net  and request to have the meeting invite emailed to you.

We are excited to be able to offer the following fully funded virtual training to all Lincolnshire patient facing staff in health, social care and the voluntary sector to assist you in your role when supporting people to improve their physical and/or mental health.

Motivational Interviewing – 1 day course

If you spend your life explaining what your patients should, could, must or need to do then this is the course for you. Motivational interviewing is a style of communication that uses a guiding/reflective style to engage with people, clarify their strengths and aspirations, and utilise their own motivations for change, and promote independence of decision making.

Friday 2nd December 2022   (9am-4pm)                 

Wednesday 1^st February 2023 (9am-4pm)

Personalised Care and Support Planning – multiple bitesize sessions

Different types of treatment and care plans are often put in place for people. They can end up having multiple plans depending on how many long term conditions they have. The plans don’t often capture what’s important to the person and they don’t always make sense to them. Sign up for this Personalised Care and Support Planning programme to learn about Personalisation approaches in health and care, the importance of knowing what matters to people,  Lincolnshire Initial Conversation Model and much more.

Cohort 9: Tuesday afternoons (2hrs) – starts 6^th December

To find more information please visit Learning & Development :: Lincolnshire STP (itsallaboutpeople.info) or to book your place please email lhnt.itsallaboutpeople@nhs.net

ACTIVE PARTNERSHIPS – ACTIVE LINCOLNSHIRE

Join Matt Evans (Active Lincolnshire) and Charlie Coward (Active Dorset) as they discuss how Active Partnership staff can build confidence in their work to embed physical activity in health and care pathways as the new ICS structures emerge.

Active Partnerships Podcast Series: A Tale of Two Counties – Active Lincolnshire

Ministerial foreword

Patients are my top priority. Purposefully, this plan is ‘Our plan for patients’.

The NHS has rightly been recognised with the award of the George Cross and the admiration of the British people, particularly for getting us through COVID-19. Most of the time, patients have a great experience, but we will not paper over the problems that we face.

Some of our challenges have been exacerbated by the pandemic, and we expect backlogs to rise before they fall as more patients come forward for diagnosis and treatment.

As we face these immense challenges, I am determined to be the champion of the patient and focus the NHS and social care on how best to deliver for them.

My approach is to trust and empower to deliver. I will be proactive, not prescriptive, with a relentless focus on measures that affect most people’s experiences of the NHS and social care. This could be putting more information at the fingertips of patients or freeing up the time of clinicians. We have listened and we are responding by removing various reasons that healthcare professionals say are holding them back from what they do best: caring for patients.

This plan sets out a range of measures to help the NHS and social care perform at their best for patients. To succeed, we need a national endeavour. That could involve clinicians who have retired to return to work or opening up opportunities for the million people who volunteered to help during the pandemic, like becoming community first responders or Good Neighbour Scheme leaders.

Our plan will sit alongside the NHS Long Term Plan, the forthcoming workforce plan, and our plans to reform adult social care. It shows the concrete steps we are taking across several areas that matter to patients and people who draw on care and support, like creating more appointments in general practice, and getting more staff on the frontline.

This plan is a first step on an important journey. It clearly shows our commitment to putting patients first; using insights from data to deliver better services across the country. While we are not being prescriptive, we will share best practice in order to improve outcomes for patients.

The data shows that sadly there is too much variation in the care people receive – dental deserts; discharge delays; ambulance delays. I will endeavour, through a powerful partnership with the NHS and local authorities, to level-up and match the expectations that the public rightly have. Whether you live in a city or a town, in the country or on the coast, this government will be on your side when you need care the most.

Rt Hon Thérèse Coffey MP
Secretary of State for Health and Social Care

To read the full announcement please click on the link below.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/our-plan-for-patients

Active Lincolnshire, Active Humber and Active Together have commissioned the Lincolnshire Open Research and Innovation Centre (LORIC) to investigate the economic impact and value of the physical activity and sport sector, future workforce needs aligned to predicted population changes across the Greater Lincolnshire area. Currently LORIC are conducting a survey and seeking responses from charities, charitable trusts, community interest companies, public and private operators, agencies, providers and delivers. Whether you are directly coaching residents, or providing the medals, turf, equipment or kit we need to hear from you. 

The survey will take no more than 10 minutes to complete and provide valuable information on skill demand, recruitment and retention of the workforce, and geographic and demographic considerations. You can complete the survey here by midnight on the 18^th September 2022.   

Please share the survey with your networks and colleagues to ensure we hear back from large and small organisations across the whole Greater Lincolnshire area.