Comments for OPM blog

Comment on Simple but powerful: making community leadership work in practice by Henry Kippin

Henry Kippin — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 12:27:27 +0000

You point to an important challenge, which is to join the dots with all of this – i.e. how does strengthening community leadership improve local growth prospects? How can residents speaking to councillors lead to better service delivery? There has been much frustration over these q’s and the role/behaviour of councils over the years, but missing out the politics isnt the answer. Looking forward to working with opm on finding it!

Comment on What can ‘the beautiful game’ teach us about how to unlock local capacity? by Simple but powerful: making community leadership work in practice | OPM blog

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 06:25:48 +0000

[...] is the latest in a series of posts in anticipation of new research from OPM about what local government can do to unlock local [...]

Comment on What can ‘the beautiful game’ teach us about how to unlock local capacity? by Putting public assets back in community hands | OPM blog

Putting public assets back in community hands | OPM blog — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 15:40:44 +0000

[...] is the latest in a series of posts in anticipation of new research from OPM about what local government can do to unlock local [...]

Comment on Releasing the talents of isolated older people by clive miller

clive miller — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:34:10 +0000

I agree with you Beth. Does anybody have examples of how older people with dual sensory loss are actively contrbuting to their local communiies?

Comment on Releasing the talents of isolated older people by Beth greene

Beth greene — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:08:43 +0000

It’s a very commendable idea, there’s an amazing amount of unused talent that would serve the communities and restore a feeling of self worth back into people who can no longer work and feel discarded.
There’s numerous unsolved problems though particularly for elderly people who have acquired hearing or vision loss but more so those with dual sensory loss. These people often go unnoticed and indeed undiagnosed because they are reluctant to admit sensory ability defects. Add to the fact there are few if any communication assistance options readily available without substantial personal expense the situation becomes dire. People once fully committed to working and involvement in society are left behind.

I’d very much like to know of any idea’s to combat this problem and assist people back into society.

Comment on The NHS – a social network? by Judith Smyth

Judith Smyth — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:16:14 +0000

Your interesting blog reminded me of the main conclusion of my research in the USA as a Harkness Fellow during which I looked at the use and abuse of competition in the procurement of public services. With a focus on mental health services it became clear that the best systems were characterised by high levels of trust and and explicit agreement about shared values. These are probably characteristics of the best networks too. Competition worked much less well when it was limited to competition on price based on overly detailed specifications where fear of failure and lack of trust prevailed.

Comment on The NHS – a social network? by Deborah Rozansky

Deborah Rozansky — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 15:32:26 +0000

Tim,
Thanks for commenting, and I agree that excessive focus on both the structure of the new organisations and traditional health and social care services may divert attention away from truly creative thinking. To tackle the most difficult health and wellbeing challenges we need to be considering ways to ensure boards are enablers of change, rather than protectors of the status quo. That’s why thinking differently about healthcare as networks opens up new possibilities. This approach recognises and values the contributions people make to their own health and care.

Comment on Patient and public involvement is becoming clearer … except for the big bit by tim gilling

tim gilling — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 16:42:45 +0000

Robin, the Bill has been strengthened significantly in terms of checks and balances such as involvement and accountability. The challenge will be to ensure CCGs (and HWBs) go beyond legal duties to involve – this is a box too easily ticked. Our view on involvement is that it should be about:

(1) providing a range of ways for people who use services and others to talk about their experiences and aspirations

(2) listening and understanding what people say

(3) providing a credible response to what has been heard

This needs to be strong part of the authorisation process for CCGs and needs meaningful measures of assessment. There is a danger that PPI becomes the ‘poor relation’ in the development work going on around CCGs and HWBs – it needs to be seen in the wider context of how these new bodies will act in transparent and inclusive ways and how they demonstrate credibility.

Comment on The NHS – a social network? by tim gilling

tim gilling — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 16:22:06 +0000

Deborah, thanks for highlighting this research. I’m interested in how the legislation can be used as a springboard to transform relationships between (1) people who plan and deliver services and (2) people who use services. So, maybe the NHS needs to be seen as three distinct networks – political, professional and social – that need to create solutions to challenges together (of course there are lots of networks within each of these).

Health and Wellbeing Boards are a formal mechanism for bringing people from these networks together but of course there needs to be an ‘ebb and flow’ of interactions towards and away from the Boards. I’m very positive that the best Boards will be those that do not focus only on healthcare and social care services but develop a creative health and wellbeing strategy to tackle inequalitiy in an area – perhaps service reconfigurations could derive legitimacy from such strategies?

Comment on It’s time for community-led community cohesion by Ewan King

Ewan King — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 11:28:09 +0000

Thanks for your comment Michael, good luck with your Community Development Club