Access and Contact

Respondents were asked if they had any contact with the Health and Social Services. Responses varied from very few community groups having any contact apart from with a health and social care worker on the ground; to the health and social care issue groups, statutory agencies and partners who had more contact. Few had contact with other community groups on health and social wellbeing issues.

Contact with the Health and Social Services

Some community respondents’ reasons for not having any contact were that

§         "it is hard  to see where the contact would actually be with the NHSSB or the Causeway HSS Trust"

§         it is  difficult to access the Board unless they were "personally concerned with the issue".

For those who did have contact, there have been some positive responses.  Such as

§         an invitation to the Causeway HSS Trust AGM which made one group feel like the "Trust were making an effort to contact and involve us as a group"

§         in the setting up of an Old Aged Pensioners club; the Causeway HSS Trust’s involvement has helped make the club "the envy of half the country". 

Others felt that on occasions, the health and social care providers or purchasers had not followed up on contacts that had been made by community groups.

The health and social care issue groups had contacts with health and social care departments that were related to their field of work but rarely with the Board.  The statutory agencies had contacts mainly with the Causeway HSS Trust eg social workers who are mostly employed by the Causeway HSS Trust and GPs with an increasing amount of contact taking place at a central, regional and local decision making level. Overall, contact was helpful and there was a willingness to work together.  One example of contact was the setting up of the VIP (Vulnerable, Isolated People) group that includes a range of statutory and voluntary organisations .

Some examples of how the Partners have previously been in contact with the NHSSB are given below.

§         Rural Community Network (RCN) acting as a broker, opening up opportunities for development and change 

§         the NHSSC representing the interest of the public on health and social services matters

§         the Community Development and Health Network (NI) working mostly on a policy level especially in relation to the restructuring of departments and how much the Boards are actually going to use community development approaches

§         Oakleaf Network with their involvement in the Rural Community Development Health Project in the Homefirst Trust area.

 

Contact with community groups

Those responding from the Board have had most contact with voluntary groups who may be submitting bids to develop particular services for their client group. One of the Board members perceived that "these groups understand the bureaucracy and who to network with so their relationships work well".  There was less contact with community groups but there were examples where they had an impact on decision making and had received funding eg Harpur’s Hill Early Years Project.

homepage | Summary | Introduction | Policy Context | Model

Findings: Health and social wellbeing | Structure and decision making | Confidence | Access and contact | Influencing decisions | Information flow | Changes in structure

Analysis | Implications for the Project| Appendix 1 - Questionnaire | Appendix 2 - Respondents