A huge “Thank You” to all of those who attended the Together for Sutton (TfS) Information Network on Tuesday 3 September 2024, it was a pleasure to see so many of you in one space again. We literally had just under 100 Sutton professionals at the event, and the buzz could be felt throughout the space. So "Thank You" for making time to come along to this one! It felt like we all made a difference.
The event was jam packed with interactive sessions exploring collaborative working on health and wellbeing projects, and we really hope each and every one of our guests and participants managed to take something away to help with collaborative working moving forwards, even if it was just the one new contact; one new idea or a new way to work! Kicking off with Simon Breeze and an introduction to where we are now, Simon discussed the need for collaborative working and how this could be bettered through future projects.
Dr Simon Breeze, CEO Community Action Sutton.
Dr Imran Choudhury then opened the session by setting the scene for the Public Sector and where we would like to be. The key, of course, collaborative working practices.
Dr Imran Choudhury, Sutton Director of Public Health.
We then introduced Dr Naomi Bennett, our very own Robin Hood Health Centre GP, Partner & Clinical Lead who updated us all on the successes of collaborative working through the Robin Hood Health Centre and Together for Sutton pop-ups. Whilst delivering these pop-ups as intended, using GP data to target marketing and personal patient invitations, it was very clear that we saw a reduction on GP surgery demand. 64 patients attended six pop-up session, all of whom were not already there for Doctors/Nurses appointments. We also found a far bigger reach to our Global Majority communities.
In comparison, with targeted marketing removed, pop-up visits remained with patients attending in-house appointments on the day only, and although footfall remained, the potential relief for appointments and perhaps earlier interventions decreased.
This collaborative working clearly demonstrates the need for our residents and a smarter way of working between sectors, and so Dr Bennett and Kate Lawman are now exploring the option to move this to a holistic programme across all four INTs, rather than running them individually. For more infomration, please see Dr Bennett's slide dec here.
Dr Naomi Bennett, Robin Hood Health Centre GP, Partner & Clinical Lead
Rather than network as we have in the past, this time round, we had project stalls around the room and invited you all to engage in 'real-time' collaborative working. We didn't want to just have the same conversations around 'who we are' and 'what we do'; we wanted to create a space for you all to learn about existing and new projects, sign-up to learning more about them, taking part in them, working together in the future on them, training etc. etc. It was so refreshing to see so many of you engaging in this activity and I will be in contact with project stall leads to see how it is all going and any future outcomes we can look forward to!
Our very own Sutton Question Time was very much the next focus of the event, and with an amazing selection of panellists, we looked to tackle questions from barriers to collaborative working, GDPR, taking our projects to our residents e.g. Faith groups etc. to Children Leaving Care. The panellists all answered questions honestly and with real enthusiasm to improve our working together moving forwards. It was clear that no one size fits all, that we may never have one system that meets all systems, or funding that will solve every problem. But what was so apparent was that if we scope our projects correctly at the beginning, involving all relevant stakeholders and talking to the right people at the right times, future work can be improved upon. It is not about jumping to solutions, to new apps or new websites, but exploring and scoping properly what already exists. Sutton is a great example of this collaborative working already at play, but there is always room for improvement!
Our closing thoughts were very much around our ‘Map of Maps’, the Sutton Information Hub (SIH). Often it is the case that we do not need to recreate the wheel! That actually, something already exists and works well enough, and if it is not broken, do we really need to fix it? Surely we just need to make ourselves aware of the resources at our fingertips and work together to improve them, all of us! Well, the SIH is very much working as Charlotte demonstrated in her data, it is quickly becoming our “Google for Sutton”, the main place to be! So if you are not already on it, I really do recommend you visit the registration page here and get online in the hub of hubs.
Charlotte Perry, Sutton Information Hub
Together for Sutton created just one space to discuss, promote and create collaborative working in real-time on the 3 September; but it doesn't stop there! The aim now is for you to share this information, collaborate and join up with your working. Now it is your turn to keep this going!!
Another huge "Thank You" to our inspiring Guest Speakers, Question Time Panellists, Project Stallholders, Chilli and the Salvation Army Team and Guests. You were all on point and helped everyone with the event so that we could focus on how best to move forwards and collaborate positively together, so thank you.