NHS South Yorkshire leaders recently met with colleagues from Sheffield’s voluntary sector to hear about their work and to discuss how they can work more closely to centre communities in what they do, improve public health and tackle health inequalities.
Gavin Boyle, Chief Executive Officer, Emma Latimer, Executive Place Director for Sheffield and Lee Outhwaite, Chief Finance Officer, visited Sheffield African Caribbean Mental Health Association (SACHMA) in Pitsmoor. SACHMA is an African Caribbean community led organisation and offers health and social care help and support to all communities in Sheffield, providing specialist services to people in need of assistance with their health and care needs because of their age, youth, disability, financial hardship or social disadvantage.
SACHMA Chief Executive Officer, David Bussue told NHS South Yorkshire colleagues about some of the work the organisation have been involved with recently, including supporting people on mental health wards, research and engagement around cancer screening, running a prostate cancer peer support group and providing a dementia and memory loss social support group for patients and their carers.
Safiya Saeed from Reach Up Youth and Lucy Davies from Healthwatch Sheffield also joined the session for a round table discussion chaired by Eleanor Rutter from Sheffield City Council's Public Health team.
Helen Sims, Chair of the South Yorkshire VCSE Alliance and Chief Executive Officer of Voluntary Action Sheffield said: “It is so important that we get out to visit our VCSE colleagues to see first hand the vital work they are doing. Partnership working between ourselves, the local council and voluntary sector is crucial to improving care for people and communities as it enables us to focus on wider determinants of health such as social, economic and environmental factors that can affect health and well-being and health inequalities.”
Gavin Boyle, Chief Executive Officer of NHS South Yorkshire said: “It was incredibly powerful to hear first hand from SACHMA and other VCSE colleagues about the critical work they are doing within their communities to support people with their health and wellbeing. NHS South Yorkshire have a statutory responsibility to tackle health inequalities and the role of the voluntary sector is imperative to help us achieve that with their close community relationships, knowledge and experience.”
Emma Latimer, Executive Place Director for Sheffield at NHS South Yorkshire said: “It was a pleasure to see the SACHMA campus and hear all about their work. Here in Sheffield we’re working closely with the voluntary and community sector to help improve people’s lives and their health. We’ll be supporting and investing in organisations like SACHMA and Reach Up Youth so they can continue to do more of the brilliant work they are already doing.”
The session was co-organised by Voluntary Action Sheffield and Karen Smith, VCSE Programme Director at NHS South Yorkshire, and builds on the work of the South Yorkshire VCSE Alliance to strengthen partnership working and collaboration across the health and care system.
NHS South Yorkshire plan to hold further conversations in Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham in the coming months.