‘Feeling Better’ – Commissioning the Community and Voluntary Sector Learning Event
Friday 2nd March 2012, Guildford
This event was run in conjunction with Health and Social Care Partnership South East and brought together commissioners of health and social care services and voluntary sector providers. Case studies from both were explored and discussed.
Key points from the event included:
There is a willingness and enthusiasm from both commissioners and the voluntary
sector to work more closely together to deliver efficient and effective services in the community but:
- to develop relationships and business between voluntary sector and commissioners involves some risk on both sides.
- the need for the voluntary sector to demonstrate resilience – how do they do that –
what are commissioners looking for?
- there is a need for commissioners to adopt proportionate approaches to commissioning
processes.
- the new commissioning structures require patient and public involvement and the VCS
are well placed to provide intelligence in their development. The VCS need to be more involved in co-design of services as well as influence Joint Strategic Needs Assessments (JSNAs) and commissioning processes.
- there is a real case for voluntary sector organisations being able to demonstrate
social value/capital in order to gain contracts/grants, especially in light of the Social Value Bill
- further investigation is needed to ascertain the long term impact of changes/cuts to
funding on voluntary organisations. There is a need for aggregated impact assessments looking strategically at impact not just on an individual basis.
- prevention is key and there is a need to invest to save. The move of public health into
local authorities could provide an opportunity to focus on prevention.
Please contact Jo Cookes, Project Manager (jo@raise-networks.org.uk) for more information.
