One of our Social Prescribing Link Workers, based at Stainland Road Medical Centre is a volunteer at the Elland and District Food Bank. This volunteering role consists of a variety of responsibilities such as food collections from local supermarkets, stock and cupboard management, bag packing, produce distribution and regular decanting of items such as Muesli which is frequently donated in bulk.
Our Link Worker has also organised a donation point at the surgery for patients, visitors and staff to fill. The Link Worker can also collect items, if necessary.
For more information on the Elland and District Food Bank and how to access their support, please see the link below: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ellandfoodbank/?locale=en_GB or contact 07543 949416.
The Social Prescribing Link Worker’s have been working with Laura Hedges of Basement Recovery Steps.
Basement Recovery Steps support anyone in Calderdale with issues with drugs and alcohol. The service is based on Carlton Street, Halifax, with Laura running clinics at Station Road Surgery providing one to one support. This has been incredibly successful, and there has recently been a clinic at Brig Royd Surgery set up
By working alongside Laura the Social Prescribing Link Workers have been able to support patients holistically to get support with their addictions while also addressing the initial referral needs. Below is some of the great feedback the project has received:
“Thank you for listening to me and understanding, I feel like I’ve been trapped in a cycle, but I think there might be light at the end of the tunnel now“
“I’m very grateful to the people supporting me at Station Road Surgery and that I don’t feel judged”
Social Prescribing Link Worker case study, October 2023:
Health inequalities – Covid Vaccination Programme, Autumn 2023
The recent campaign has included working in collaboration with other Primary Care Networks (PCNs) in Calderdale. MAKE EVERY CONTACT COUNT has been the focus to ensure patients can receive a range of services in one visit.
The Health Inequalities roving team have managed to offer health checks, wound care, weight and height measurements, blood pressure checks, covid and flu vaccinations.
The project visited a variety of venues from October 2023 to December 2023:
- William Henry Smith School
- Ravenscliffe School
- Innovations Children Centre
- Todmorden Learning Centre
- Supported Living homes
- The Gathering Place
- The Basement Project
- Laura Mitchell Centre
- St Augustine’s Centre
- Jubilee Family Centre
POSITIVE OUTCOMES:
Health inequalities – Covid Vaccination Programme 2022-2023
Calder & Ryburn’s Covid19 roving team have been very busy over the last year, specifically supporting those who suffer from health inequalities. The current process in our PCN is to encourage efforts tackling health inequalities at Network level. We were able to support and work with inclusion health groups across Calderdale by delivering a range of pop-up clinics within the local area.
Development of relationships across CCG, CMBC, voluntary sector, volunteers and Covid Champions, providers of care to vulnerable groups and wider relationships with West Yorkshire wide Health Inequalities Vaccination meetings. The next steps – building on our work and relationships formed to MAKE EVERY CONTACT COUNT and reduce health inequalities in a wider sense, not purely Covid vaccinations. This project will be supported by Public Health at CMBC for a further year to the end of March 2023.
Since retiring as Practice Manager at Brig Royd Surgery in June 2021, Sue Rosborough has been the lead for the Health Inequalities Project and will continue into 2022-23. Sue has worked really hard to develop and maintain links with the disadvantaged communities to help reduce Health Inequalities and provide support and information to those who usually wouldn’t access vaccinations and other services.
“We have built up a great team doing the roving model. It doesn’t matter where we asked the team to go, they always showed up and worked tremendously.”
The team have been visiting a variety of different locations, targeting many health inequalities groups such as asylum seekers, recovering addicts, the homeless, patients with learning disabilities, ethnic minorities and many more:
The Piece Hall. The team visited The Piece Hall twice for the weekend in May and June 2021. They worked with other PCN’s within Calderdale.
Parkinson Lane Primary School. We visited in July and September 2021. 118 vaccines were administered in total including 60 first doses.
Circus Extreme. July 2021. This was the first vaccination site held in a circus! 67 doses were administered to all ages.
Mixenden & Illingworth. August 2021. Working in collaboration with North PCN, this was done in a mobile unit based on a bus through Mixenden & Illingworth via Morrisons. 90 vaccinations were given – mainly first doses.
Acapulco Night Club. September and October 2021. This was mainly focused at young people over 16. 174 doses were administered including some patients who are homeless with the support of CMBC.
Trinity Sixth Form College. October 2021. Sessions were run over lunch time throughout the week. A total of 127 doses were given to pupils aged 16-18.
Ravencliffe School. October, December and March 2022. A total of 200 doses were given – first, second and boosters plus the team went back in March and gave first doses to some 11-year olds
Wool Merchants Hotel. January 2022. 44 doses were administered to asylum seekers, mainly first doses.
William Henry Smith School. March 2022
31 doses were given – 6 to staff and 25 to pupils including first doses to many 7–11-year olds.
St Augustine’s. Visited 4 times in total to support asylum seekers. In total there have been 246 doses administered.
The Basement Project. December 2021 and February 2022. 57 doses were administered to patients who are recovering addicts and homeless.
Laura Mitchell Centre. The team worked with SWYPFT to give 22 vaccinations to patients with SMI.
Ravenscliffe School. The team revisited the school in October 2022 administering 78 boosters to children and staff
The Basement Project. October 2022. This was a large visit for the Make Every Contact Count movement as the team administered 47 Covid-19 vaccines and 44 Flu vaccines. Blood pressure checks, wound care and the opportunity to speak to many different health care professionals was also available.
Carer’s Celebration Day. November 2022.
The team worked closely with Making Space Carer’s Wellbeing to offer Covid-19 and Flu Vaccinations.
William Henry Smith School. November 2022. The team offered a range of Covid-19 Vaccines including boosters to cater for the range of ages within this school.
People With Learning Disabilities. November 2022. Working closely with Central PCN this bespoke clinic was offered to ensure patients received a specialised clinic. Calderdale Learning Disabilities Team and Lead the Way joined us for this personalised clinic.
Laura Mitchell. November 2022. This clinic was set up to provide a personalised clinic for patients who have SMI’s and would benefit from reasonable adjustments being made.
Carers Wellbeing Project at Brig Royd Surgery
The Social Prescribing Link Worker’s for Calder & Ryburn has been working with Making Space who are the Carers Wellbeing Service in Calderdale. Making Space aim to provide carers aged 18 and over with support and resources to assist them as a carer and promote their own health and wellbeing.
It had been identified that there was a high number of referrals for carers residing within the Brig Royd Practice area and felt that providing pro-active support to try and avoid people reaching crisis point would be beneficial for both the carers and the people they care for. Brig Royd Surgery agreed to pilot the clinics to help support these carers. Monthly clinics are being held which provide 5 pre-bookable appointments for carers registered at Brig Royd Surgery.
After the clinic has been running for a few months here is some of the feedback the project has received:
“It is an excellent service. I feel very well informed and hope to be able to join some things in the future. Aisha is a lovely young lady and very compassionate”.
“Aisha was very helpful and helped me to apply for attendance and carers allowance and provided lots of useful information on who I can contact and I will definitely follow up in future if I need to”.
Calder & Ryburn PCN has been involved from the start of the Covid Vaccination Programme. Our vaccination programme has been supported by all the GP Practices in Calder & Ryburn. We are proud to have recruited retired GPs and nurses who have returned to help in the vaccination effort as well as local dentist and optometrist who have been supporting the vaccine effort in additional to their normal line of work. During the programme we have brought on board local university students and other volunteers who have been keen to be involved after they have received their vaccination in our clinics.
Calder & Ryburn has had massive success in delivering the programme for their population with high vaccination rates . We have worked with the CCG and local authority to help deliver pop up vaccination clinics to target areas of need. We have had successful pop-ups at the Piece Hall, faith centres, business parks, schools, a circus and many more. We have received national recognition for our outreach and we continue to work with the local authority to help tackle inequalities.
Our programme would not be possible without the many people who have devoted their time to support our programme.
