Four partnerships chosen to be part of the Health Foundation’s programme to improve health care services through collaborative communities

The four ambitious teams from across the UK are partnerships between the voluntary and community sector, such as charities and social enterprises, and the NHS. They will work to build sustainable change in health care through collaboration between those who use services and those who deliver them.

The projects will focus on four very different areas of health care: improving health services for homeless people; reducing HIV health inequalities; putting people with inflammatory bowel disease in control of their care; and redesigning services for people with learning disabilities or autism.

The Health Foundation is supporting these partnerships to make improvements to health care services that are driven by members of the public. Voluntary and community sector organisations are vital to this type of collaboration as they have the ability to harness the knowledge and skills in the community.

The project teams will work with universities, commissioning organisations and local authorities, and will ensure that learning is captured and impact measured.

Each team has received between £300,000 and £500,000 and the projects will be completed over two to three years.

The projects are:

• Improving health services with homeless people in Brighton – Arch Health
  This project is aiming to improve health services for homeless and vulnerably housed people in Brighton and Hove by integrating the experiences of people who use the services into evaluation, improvement and development of homeless health care.
• Working with people of African and Caribbean heritage to reduce HIV transmission in Bristol – Brigstowe
  This project is aiming to reverse HIV health inequalities experienced by people of African and Caribbean heritage living in and around Bristol by developing and testing a series of interventions with the local community.
• What matters to you? Putting people with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in control of their care – Crohn’s & Colitis UK
  This project will create partnerships, led by people living with IBD, to design services and deliver improved outcomes, putting people with IBD in control of their care and focusing on what matters to them.
• Developing a radical new approach for designing services with people with learning disabilities and autistic people in London – Heart n Soul
  This project is aiming to improve the quality of relationships and listening between people with learning disabilities or autism and health care professionals, through the co-design of services via collaboration and creativity.