Blog

Loreen Chikwira explores how better listening, collaborative working with minority ethnic women and better support for link workers can improve how social prescribing supports migrant women.

Oliver Standing, Director of Collective Voice, and colleagues from the Alliance Group, explore the opportunities offered by England’s new drugs strategy, as well as the challenges that lie ahead.

How has the Covid-19 pandemic and its effect on health services affected public perceptions of the NHS? The results of the 2021 British Social Attitudes survey reveal an unprecedented drop in public satisfaction with health services.

The NHS is facing the challenges of growing waiting lists, missed performance targets and a severe workforce shortage. How will public attitudes towards the health service change if the taxpayer-funded increase in health spending doesn’t result in improvements?

Partnership working can be transformative – if it works well. Here we share two techniques, observed as part of the Healthy Communities Together programme, that can help in forming healthy partnerships.

Angela Fell, Director of Northern Heart and Soul in Wigan, outlines why we should move beyond person-centred services to a community-centred approach in order to transform people's health and wellbeing.

The government’s ambitious new data strategy for health and social care has been published. But, says Pritesh Mistry, the strategy could suffer the same fate as previous data initiatives, unless the government focuses on gaining people’s trust and ensuring transparency.

Dame Carol Black’s review has produced a comprehensive set of recommendations for action on drugs prevention, treatment and recovery. Ruth Robertson reflects on the wide range of services that need to be involved.

Data, funding and workforce – if the government wants its proposed reforms to the MHA to create change these system-wide enablers are as important as individual changes to legislation. Helen Gilburt consider the issues.

As we reach the one-year anniversary of the start of lockdown in the United Kingdom, Richard Murray outlines how a whole-system response will best support staff and patients and help to tackle inequalities.

Helen Gilburt shares her research into how mental health and social care professionals make decisions around whether to detain people with mental disorders under the Mental Health Act or the Mental Capacity Act – Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards. Her research uncovered a range of understandings and misunderstandings which impact on practice.

How can councils work with communities to shape a local response to Covid-19 that meets local needs? Jason Strelitz, Director of Public Health for Newham, and Anne Bowers, Programme Lead for Newham Covid-19 Health Champions, outline what has been happening in Newham.

How will the Covid-19 vaccination programme achieve the uptake it hopes for? Dan Wellings says understanding and involving local communities, their needs and concerns has to be part of the answer.

NHS England and NHS Improvement’s latest legislative proposals show a desire to fast forward the integration agenda, but without further detail it’s hard to reach a view. Richard Murray reflects on the proposals.

How can NHS services use their facilities to better support social prescribing? Ben Collins highlights what’s needed to make NHS sites more welcoming spaces for individuals and communities.

Digital tools and services are increasingly being used in health and care, but what happens to all the data that is collected, who should have access to it and who decides? Pritesh Mistry outlines the value of trust and transparency in these complex agreements

Providing joined-up services that address people’s physical and mental health needs has long been a challenge. Jihad Malasi asks whether primary care networks could be the answer to providing holistic primary care mental health services.

What should a new government strategy on obesity look like? David Buck outlines what is needed to ensure this attempt is successful.

Helen Gilburt reflects on the experiences of staff and people with mental health problems during the first months of Covid-19 and urges mental health services to learn from those experiences to plan for the future.

The Covid-19 outbreak has exposed gaps in psychosocial support for health care workers. Mary Docherty, Consultant Liaison Psychiatrist at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust London, considers the action needed to address those gaps and meet the needs of the workforce in the future.