A View from the Turret- Connect Northamptonshire enters its final year

For those of you who don’t know, Connect Northamptonshire is a VIN managed programme funded by the Lottery Community Fund. The principal aim of Connect Northamptonshire is to embed the VCSE into the Integrated Care System, the biggest transformation in health and social care for decades: And why is that so important?

Apart from it being prescribed in the NHS Long Term Plan and every other piece of guidance issued since, the use of the VCSE in Health and in Place is compelling. The VCSE lives, works, and invests in local communities, can deploy rapidly and intuitively around health inequalities whilst costing less. The idea that prescription is required to work with the VCSE I find strangely perplexing. Both Health and Local Authorities cannot deliver the change that the Integrated Care System demands without us. As someone once said: It’s as plain as the nose on your face.

Connect Northamptonshire has moved mountains to ensure that the VCSE is involved with statutory partners, has built relationships across all sectors and is now running a series of Pilot Projects on Health Inequalities which puts the VCSE at centre stage. These Pilot Projects will demonstrate that commissions can be dealt with differently and are more engaging and targeted as a result. The programme has adopted a Test and Learn Approach, and in the final months of the contract VIN will be vocalising what they have achieved and why placing the VCSE at the heart of commissions is vital.

I cannot commend my Alliances Manager, Claire Neilson, highly enough for her tireless work and enthusiasm in this regard, across a complex and difficult landscape.

My question (and indeed it should be everybody’s question) is what happens when the contract ceases in August of 2025?

Will it be another case of a legacy so hard gained so easily lost?

I have run and attended several conferences or partnership forums on Health Inequalities throughout 2024. What I hear consistently is a lack of legacy within the County, a lack of learning from what’s been achieved.  I have a simple solution:

Retain the Alliances Manager Post past August of 2025 and continue with the programme of embedding the VCSE at System and at Place. I am not precious where that post sits, but to lose it would create a hiatus which could undermine the momentum that Connect Northamptonshire has built. If the Integrated Care System is predicated upon the 10-year NHS plan, then embedding the VCSE could take a further 2- 4 years. The cost of continuing the post is unlikely to be met from the Community Fund but it could easily be achieved within Health and Public Health, or a combination of both, and the value of a bespoke and focussed resource would be worth the investment.

Think about how we commission services. If learning is important, then commission differently. The Kings Fund report on how to tackle Health Inequlaities says exactly that. Top slice commissions to include the right and correct level of market intelligence and use the Insights Library to land bank the data. In this, the VCSE becomes an assured independent broker, and that journey could be delivered through the Alliances Manager if they remain in post.

My plea is always the same. If the Integrated Care System is about anything, its an opportunity to do things differently. Let’s not miss the chance.