News
Keep up to date with what’s happening at Verve and read what we are saying about communications in the public sector.
1st Dec 2011Draw upon the strengths of community players
Following a meeting of voluntary sector, community and BME leaders organised by the Afiya Trust and Verve, a hard-hitting report has been submitted to Andrew Lansley’s Future Forum. The report makes a series of demands including that:
• An inclusive local partnership should be established within each local authority area to support joint engagement across health and social care (recommendation 4)
• An inclusive framework should be developed for public health which fully reflects the UK’s diverse communities and draws upon the strengths of local networks and third sector groups (recommendation 5)
Launching the report, Patrick Vernon, Chief Executive of the Afiya Trust commented:
“Potentially, the health service changes are a ‘once in a generation’ opportunity to recast relationships with patients and communities. But we will be looking for big improvements in the way that local groups are encouraged to participate."
31st Jan 2011Journey to social enterprise
We have been working with Bromley’s Community Provider Unit to help them on their journey towards creating a brand new organisation.
We joined the team, working closely with the executive to bring new skills to the table, developed a communications programme that kept local stakeholders involved and informed, and worked with every member of staff to ensure they understood what the changes meant for them.
To prepare for the competition of the future, our team provided the communications and engagement support needed to achieve Direct Provider status and to formulate a Full Business Case for a forward-looking social enterprise – the only one in London.
We worked with clinicians to develop a comprehensive PPI programme that provides valuable insights into how patients experience services, and helped to meet CQC and Community Provider Regime standards.
We organised focus groups, questionnaires, interviews and user groups to contribute strategically to planning at every level, and an annual patient satisfaction survey which is helping to benchmark the views of all service users (including a special questionnaire for kids!)