The North East and North Cumbria (NENC) VCSE Partnership Programme, led by VONNE, supports the integration of the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector within the emerging Integrated Care System (ICS) structures in our region. In a previous blog post Siobhan Flynn, VCSE Partnership Programme Engagement Manager, provided an overview of the value in involving the VCSE within the ICS, focusing on three key points of value:
- Specialist knowledge and community reach.
- Fresh perspectives.
- Ensuring a connected approach to care, health and wellbeing.
The central aim of ICSs is to integrate care across different organisations and settings. Therefore, collaboration with the VCSE sector is integral to ensure a connected approach to care, health and wellbeing. However, challenges come with seeking VCSE organisations engagement and representation.
In this blog Siobhan focuses on three key challenges:
- The size of the VCSE sector and varying sizes of organisations within it.
- That the VCSE sector is under pressure and has limited capacity.
- Ensuring the health and care system and VCSE understand one another.
The size of the VCSE sector
Thousands of VCSE organisations operate in the North East and North Cumbria and these range from informal grassroots groups supporting people in their local community to bigger charities who employ a large workforce.
Along with this, these groups address a myriad of issues ranging from mental health, to ageing well and cancer care. The diversity of the VCSE sector is a strength to be recognised and celebrated – but it also means it can be daunting for NHS colleagues to engage with the sector in a systematic way.
Though the sheer size and diversity of the VCSE can be overwhelming, the VCSE Partnership Programme provides a clear and central point of communication between the VCSE sector and the Integrated Care System. The programme oversees a range of forums and groups which seek to ensure that VCSE representation is possible.
The VCSE sector is under pressure and has limited capacity
VCSE organisations need funding to exist, as funding has historically been short term for voluntary and community sector groups, it can be competitive and commercially minded, which does not play well into collaborative efforts.
The pandemic showed a commitment to collaboration between the VCSE and NHS, based on the interests of the people they serve, improves results. This can further be built upon by developing and demonstrating a common purpose, vision and values, which focus on the greater good, something our Memorandum of Understanding, of which we recently shared our first draft, seeks to do.
Ensuring the health and care system and VCSE sector understand one another
The NPC Untapped Potential paper notes that “the health and care system doesn’t always see the breadth of what the charity sector can offer, and how this is relevant”. There can be a lack of knowledge and understanding of the range of ways voluntary organisations can support the public sector.
There is also an inherent imbalance of power between the public sector and VCSE. It is important that the VCSE is recognised as a key partner in the ICS and that the VCSE also understands how valuable their engagement and representation is. Reaching and engaging with people across all sectors can change the culture of partnerships, and lead to better outcomes for people and communities.
By ensuring that the health and care system and VCSE understand one another and what their collaboration makes possible, we can hope to see increased engagement and representation of the VCSE.
Steps to overcome these challenges are already being taken by the VCSE Partnership Programme, including:
- A Health and Wellbeing Network – our Health and Wellbeing bulletin containing information about the VCSE Partnership Programme, health and care system developments and research, regional health and wellbeing news, funding and events.
- Partnership Forum for strategic health and wellbeing VCSE leads
- Topical sub-groups that work alongside ICS workstreams/clinical networks
The VCSE Partnership Programme provides a single point of contact for the NHS to access the sector; ensures voluntary sector representation within the new structures, including at board level; and provides feedback to the wider sector about what is happening across our ICS.