More than 300 residents turned out to the NW London Health and Wellbeing Windrush Day Celebration event; a partnership with Hammersmith and Fulham Council and local community groups.

The event brought together over 40 stalls providing free health checks, screenings and education on site to provide support and advice. Speeches were given by Mayor of Hammersmith and Fulham, Councillor Patricia Quigley, Sharon Tomlin from SOBUS and June Farquharson NW London.  

Rob Hurd, in his address celebrating the importance to the country and the NHS of Windrush, emphasised the fact that 80% of the determinants of health were not driven by healthcare but other social factors; underlining the importance of our working with local authorities, communities and third sector to tackle health as a system.  He highlighted the significant inequalities in key health measures and the ICS’s determination to address these both specifically and holistically.

The second Employment Expo was held in Harrow this month. The event, well attended included interactive careers workshops, volunteering, internships and apprenticeship opportunities, health checks, local and National employers with live jobs. NW London is one of 15 WorkWell vanguards, awarded almost £4m funding to support people start, stay and succeed at work

Volunteer to Career is now embedded at CLCH and rolling out at WLT, with opportunities identified to further promote and extend this programme, and the Back to Health volunteering programme is now rolling out in Brent alongside the existing pilot in Hillingdon.

Two grass root providers have been commissioned to take forward co-production work on BME experience of maternity and the Caribbean.

This work will feed into the wider strategic evaluation undertaken by African Health Network (CAHN) on effectiveness of in-reach models for the black community in improving health outcomes.

Imperial and 3ST have been working in partnership to gain a deeper understanding of the barriers faced in three areas of known inequalities and demand:

-   childhood asthma;

-   families seeking asylum and:

-   pregnant people

The project, part of a three phase approach, carried out in partnership with borough- based partnerships in Hillingdon and Hounslow, and the NW London maternity and neonatal programme, and the NW London babies, children, and young people network will conclude in July.  

The evaluation of this work will inform phase two which will incorporate greater involvement and coproduction with communities and residents.

The bi-borough team is working to establish ‘ways of working’ for three emerging Integrated Neighbourhood Teams (INT). Each INT has a leadership team, with a primary care chair, and sub-groups to lead on priorities for local residents. 

The 'North INT', covering North Kensington, Queens Park and Paddington, is focusing on improvements for older people whom need support with their mental health.  This approach is aligned with the North Kensington Recovery Team’s work with the Grenfell affected communities.

Complementing this, the local care team is sponsoring a review of the proactive and multiagency frailty service called ‘My Care My Way’ and its centrality to the operating model of the INT.

NW London is participating in the national audit of Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs), which assesses the activity, staffing, quality, and impact on inequalities of each of our 23 MHSTs. The findings from this audit will help our eight boroughs to learn from each other’s successes as we continue our aim to reach at least 4,600 contacts per year and implement YoungMinds’ quality improvement recommendations.

In response to the national Inpatient Quality Transformation Programme, NW London ICB is working with our two NHS mental health providers to develop a three-year plan to improve the quality of adult inpatient care with a focus on purposeful admissions and therapeutic interventions including trauma-informed practices. The plan is due to be finalised by the end of the summer.

West London NHS Trust (WLT) will be the new provider of community health services in Hounslow from July 2024, after NHS North West London Integrated Care Board (ICB) and Hounslow and Richmond Community Healthcare (HRCH) agreed to end their current contractual arrangement. 

There will be no changes to patient services, which will ‘lift and shift’ from HRCH to WLT. Both Trusts are commended for their commitment to a smooth transfer of services so patients are not disrupted. 

WLT was selected as the new provider by the ICB, under the new national provider selection regime. The Trust provides care and treatment for more than 800,000 people living in the London boroughs of Ealing, Hammersmith & Fulham and Hounslow, delivering services in the community (at home, in GP surgeries and care homes), hospital, specialist clinics and forensic (secure) units.

The decision to transfer these services supports our ongoing commitment to ensuring health and care equality across all boroughs within North West London.  We look forward to continuing our work with West London NHS Trust and we want to thank HRCH for their contribution to community healthcare in Hounslow over many years, including managing these community services. We know they will continue to be supportive neighbours and that they are doing everything they can to aid the transition.

The Post-Covid programme's animation project has been shortlisted for the HSJ Awards 2024 in the Health Inequalities category. This innovative project, which educates patients about post-Covid services in an accessible and visually engaging way, has garnered over 51,000 views worldwide. Now translated into six core languages, it has significantly raised awareness of Post-Covid services across NW London.

More than 40 link workers from across the Hounslow Borough Based Partnership came together to share experiences of positive integration outcomes, and identify further approaches to help connect residents to community groups and statutory services for practical and emotional support. 

West London Trust Cognitive Impairment and Dementia Services (CIDS) team, highlighted: 

“The dementia link workers in Hounslow are passionate about providing the best care to their patients. We understand the challenges families face whilst supporting their loved ones and provide carers support through signposting to services.” 

Colleagues at event also shared how residents’ lives had been improved through increased link worker integration, with the following examples:  

1.    Link workers are now on the same page, so client doesn’t feel like they must keep repeating themselves; 

2.    They have been able to assist residents who may have previously fallen through any gaps in the system;

3.    There have been times when reduced hospitalisation of patients has been achieved, as care can be managed in the community;

4.   Teams are now able to send residents directly to drop-ins / hubs without lengthy referrals.

Good progress has been made to reduce the ethnicity disparity of maternal mortality. A current area of focus is reducing the barriers for pregnant people to report any reduced fetal movements quickly, thereby getting specialist help earlier and reducing the ethnicity disparity seen in still birth numbers. 

Mindful of the national shortage of midwives, where trusts have safe staffing numbers, they use a more staff-intensive model of care to offer Black and Asian pregnant people greater continuity of carer, and thereby help build trust and tackle clinical risks earlier.

For pregnant NW London residents (a significant number of pregnant people who use our maternity services are from outside NW London) we have well-established statutory Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnerships, chaired by local community champions who are active partners in all our work streams and our board.  

NW London is working with Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnerships and the voluntary sector on a community-led approach to grass-roots, in-depth co-production of further health equity innovations in Hillingdon and Hounslow for pregnant people, including those who are asylum seekers. The acute provider collaborative is trailing real-time digital translation tools for clinical staff to use in maternity and tobacco dependency services, to further improve equity of health care experience for pregnant people where English is not their first language, and to improve the ability of those people to get advice for personalised care quickly. 

At the June NW London Performance Committee, the scope for the development of a NW London Strategic Plan for Maternity & Neonates (building on existing analysis and plans in the NWL Equity & Equality Plan, Joint Forward Plan and the national Three Year Delivery Plan) was set out. 

The strategic plan will bring together the feedback and comments from previous system level discussions. The strategy will include:

•  Current demographics and activity and projected forward 5 years;

•   Current outcomes; 

•   Best practice pathways; 

•  Workforce current and future planning;  opportunities to use digital tools/new      approaches;

•  Costs of care; 

•  Set out recommendations and the implementation plan.

Work is currently underway to agree how best to resource the work and set out a timeline for delivery. The strategy will then be presented at the Strategic Commissioning Committee for approval and monitoring and assurance will be via the Performance Committee.

Across NW London, 61 voluntary and charity organisations were successful in their bids to host cancer awareness raising social sessions for their local groups and communities.

These events are planned from late July until early September and are running across all boroughs in NW London. Alongside this RM Partners also launched their strategic patient and community forum with the inaugural meeting setting the scene with partners in early June.

The group will participate in developing the cancer strategy for the next five years and will support individual pieces of work to help meet our ambition of improving the diagnosis of cancer earlier.

Six months ago, local care consolidated and simplified virtual ward pathways, greatly improving and sustaining clinician uptake. With a current capacity of 431 beds and 71% utilisation, service usage remains positive, especially for summer. The Trusts have finalised plans for the next year, including detailed targets and KPIs to drive ongoing improvements.

The local care team celebrated World Hypertension Day to promote the importance of regular blood pressure monitoring, taking part and locally running the "Check Your Numbers" campaign to educate the community on managing hypertension. As part of this:

•  a digital platform for self-management was launched (called My Health London) targeting 140,000 residents at risk of CVD.  

• ICHP and NW London ICB launched a 'Big Case Find' initiative to detect undiagnosed hypertension across 17 PCNs through community engagement.

June also saw Diabetes Week and the local care team and system partners used this as opportunity to champion diabetes prevention and management through healthy eating, exercise, and early screening. As part of the week:

• The NW London Partners in Diabetes celebrated the launch of the 14th peer-led Diabetes Community Club.

• Local celebrated the work of the Know Diabetes Service, which has reduced primary care consultations by 20%. 

• Local care emphasised that NW London ranks highly among Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) in the National Diabetes Audit. This is due to the high number of patients receiving their nine key care processes and achieving their three treatment targets, reflecting effective diabetes management.

Work continues to develop the revised NW London ICS Estates Strategy and its underpinning delivery plan. The ICB is working closely with local authorities, primary care, programme teams, Trust directors and borough leads to review and prioritise an array of projects that will enable and contribute towards ICS priorities, whilst ensuring our estate remains fit-for-purpose. Focused workshops have begun to review these on a borough-by-borough basis, with ambitions to formalise an outline plan by Q3 of this financial year. ICB on track to submit Estates Strategy (in NHSE format) by the July deadline

The first phase of the ICS’s estate rationalisation activity has now concluded and the second phase is due to begin in the coming weeks and involves termination of expiring leases (which are no longer deemed to represent value for money) and rationalisation of estate across Hillingdon (Oct 2024) and Brent (March 2025).

Work continues with local authorities, Trusts, boroughs and other NHS stakeholders, to inform local authority Local Development Plans and their respective Infrastructure Delivery Plans (IDPs). This includes responding to a number of policy regulation changes and large-scale planning applications in attempts to obtain additional external funding or explore purpose-built facilities, whilst ensuring alignment to our overarching strategic ICS priorities, inequalities projections and population needs. ICB Estates are also working closely with NHS Property Services’ Town Planning Teams to explore Community Infrastructure Levy funding opportunities across boroughs to fund additional schemes.

Discussions have taken place with the Oak & Park Royal Development Committee (OPDC) Planning team to discuss the broader programme plan, available funding and support for proposed projects in light of significant population growth being generated from this new development, which spans across Brent, Ealing and Hammersmith & Fulham. Estates has already secured s106 funding for two short-term schemes (at Cloister Road, Ealing and Willesden Centre for Health, Brent) to support service delivery. Further applications for funding and healthcare facilities are being explored over coming months.

The Estates team continues to explore opportunities with ICS stakeholders to repurpose existing space to improve service offerings and accessibility to healthcare for communities, whilst reducing vacant and unused bookable at Jubilee Gardens, Heart of Hounslow, St Charles, The Meadows, Alexandra Avenue, Willesden Centre for Health and other locations. Positive discussions are underway with WLT Trust who are looking to expand their presence at The Meadows & Heart of Hounslow. Harrow LA who have approached the ICB seeking vacant space to house their Children Counselling services and external consultants have been appointed to design space for the proposed move of the Law Medical Group practice into Willesden Health Centre. All these opportunities will potentially reduce void across the NW London and create savings for the ICB.

ICB Estates continue to meet regularly with NHS property companies (NHS PS and CHP) to undertake audits of all sites. This includes ensuring that occupancies are accurately documented, leases are in place with appropriate charging arrangements and, where needed, service and facilities management costs are challenged. Dedicated work is being undertaken at a number of sites, including Alexandra Avenue, St Charles, The Pinn and Heart of Hounslow. Site visits to St Charles and South Westminster Centre have been planned with NHSPS in the coming weeks to review occupancy and ensure premises are utilised effectively. Further site visits across NW London are scheduled to be planned over the coming months.