Vibrant Healthy Communities: Doing Things Differently Bi-borough VCS Summit 2023

Thanks to all across the Bi borough who came to the Vibrant and Healthy Communities 'Doing things Differently' Bi borough VCS Summit on Friday 17 November.

The Summit provided the opportunity for all of us within the voluntary and community sector to have our say on what we see as important in addressing health inequalities.  

Summary of presentations:

• Joe Nguyen, Borough Director, Westminster (Central London), spoke about the commitment the local NHS has in working with the VCS.  He went on to talk about the Health and Wellbeing ambitions that the Health and Wellbeing Board has signed up to, the role of the Place Based Partnership in delivering on local priorities across the Bi borough and the valued role the VCS has within the Partnership.  
• Angela Spence, CEO of KCSC highlighted the statutory Bi borough 10 year Health and Wellbeing Strategy in which 10 ambitions have been stated and by which partners across the system all have a role to play in achieving those ambitions.  It is also about the Health and Wellbeing Board being accountable to the community on how it delivers on those ambition over the next 10 years and the Board should be challenged on this when necessary. 
• Angela went on to talk about the Bi borough VCS Health and Wellbeing strategy 'Doing things Differently' which aims to be the strategic guide for the VCS on how we should be embedded within the local health and care system.
• Iain Cassidy, CEO of Open Age and a member of the Bi Borough VCS Strategic Group spoke about the importance of data and intelligence captured by the VCS and how this can help demonstrate the impact of the work of the sector on health and wellbeing outcomes.
• Michael Ashe, CEO of the Volunteer Centre Kensington and Chelsea spoke about how we can build a collaborative culture and work together to deliver holistic services. 
• Nicola Steur (Big Local) talked about the importance of a community powered approach, where communities should be at the heart of all planning and designing services.  
• Jackie Rosenberg, CEO of One Westminster, introduced the Vibrant and Healthy Communities programme, which is a workstream of the Place Based Partnership led by the VCS as a community asset based approach in tackling health inequalities.

You can read the presentation slides here and Michael's speech here.

We will be sending an update on what came out of the excellent table discussions and next steps for the Vibrant and Healthy Communities programme in due course.