The North Southall Primary Care Network (PCN) is looking to recruit a social prescriber to support the residents of North Southall to take control of their health and wellbeing, gives time, focuses on ‘what matters to me’ and takes a holistic approach to an individual’s health and wellbeing.

This role will be employed by Ealing GP Federation on behalf of the North Southall PCN. 

Social prescribing link workers will also work as a key part of the primary care network (PCN) multi-disciplinary team. Social prescribing can help PCNs to strengthen community and personal resilience and reduces health and wellbeing inequalities by addressing the wider determinants of health, such as debt, poor housing and physical inactivity, by increasing people’s active involvement with their local communities. It particularly works for people with long term conditions (including support for mental health), for people who are lonely or isolated, or have complex social needs which affect their wellbeing.

The successful candidate will work to develop and engage a Network-wide patient participation group, aiming to deliver lifestyle promotion talks and activities such as walking groups, gardening clubs, etc, as identified by the Network members, with a view to enriching the lives of patients and improving their health and wellbeing.  In recognition of the size of the network, we accept that a hub-based model for the delivery of these services may be necessary.

Key Responsibilities

1. Working under supervision of the core network member practices i.e. the GPs, practice managers and the network manager, take referrals from the network practices.
2. Provide support to individuals, their families and carers to take control of their health and wellbeing, live independently and improve their health outcomes, as a key member of the PCN multi-disciplinary team.
3. Develop trusting relationships by giving people time and focus on ‘what matters to me’. Take a holistic approach, based on the person’s priorities and the wider determinants of health.
4. Work with patients to produce a simple personalised care and support plan to improve health and wellbeing, introducing or reconnecting people to community groups and statutory services.
5. Proactively identify and arrange locality-based wellbeing events to improve the general health of patients in the North Southall Network.  Have the ability to think laterally, to offer suggestions in discussion with the core group, as to lead at such events.
6. Refer people and/or introduce them to appropriate organisations in Ealing and nationally (where appropriate) e.g. voluntary, statutory (local authority) and local NHS organisations.
7. The role will require managing and prioritising your own caseload, in accordance with the needs, priorities and any urgent support required by individuals on the caseload. It is vital that you have a strong awareness and understanding of when it is appropriate or necessary to refer people back to other health professionals/agencies, when what the person’s needs are beyond the scope of the link worker role – e.g. when there is a mental health need requiring a qualified practitioner.
8. Social prescribing link workers will have a role in educating non-clinical and clinical staff within The Network’s multi-disciplinary teams on what services are available in the local area and how and when people can access them. This may include verbal or written advice and guidance.
9. Provide progress and performance reports to the North Southall Network Core Group e.g. caseload monitoring reports, outcomes seen within people and families any cross-organisational barriers experiences and other reports as determined by The Network.

Key Tasks

Referrals

• Promote social prescribing, its role in self-management, and the wider determinants of health.
• As part of the PCN multi-disciplinary team, build relationships with staff in GP practices within the local PCN, attending relevant MDT meetings, giving information and feedback on social prescribing.
• Be proactive in developing strong links with all local agencies to encourage referrals, recognising what they need to be confident in the service to make appropriate referrals.
• Work in partnership with all local agencies to raise awareness of social prescribing and how partnership working can reduce pressure on statutory services, improve health outcomes and enable a holistic approach to care.
• Provide referral agencies with regular updates about social prescribing, including training for their staff and how to access information to encourage appropriate referrals.
• Seek regular feedback about the quality of service and impact of social prescribing on referral agencies.
• Be proactive in encouraging self-referrals and connecting with all local communities, particularly those communities that statutory agencies may find hard to reach.

Provide personalised support

• Where the Network anticipates that much of the work will be group based, to physically introduce people to community groups, activities and statutory services. The social prescriber may be required to arrange such well-being events, where they do not already exist, in conjunction with local services and VCSEs.
• Follow up to ensure they are happy, able to engage, included and receiving good support.
• Be a friendly source of information about health, wellbeing and prevention approaches.
• Help people identify the wider issues that impact on their health and wellbeing, such as debt, poor housing, being unemployed, loneliness and caring responsibilities.
• Work with the person, their families and carers and consider how they can all be supported through social prescribing.
• Help people maintain or regain independence through living skills, adaptations, enablement approaches and simple safeguards.
• Work with individuals where necessary to co-produce a simple personalised support plan to address the person’s health and wellbeing needs – based on the person’s priorities, interests, values and motivations – including what they can expect from the groups, activities and services they are being connected to and what the person can do for themselves to improve their health and wellbeing.
• Seek advice and support from the GP supervisor and/or identified individual(s) to discuss patient-related concerns e.g. abuse, domestic violence and support with mental health, referring the patient back to the GP or other suitable health professional if required.
• If necessary assist/facilitate a GP appointment for the delivery of healthcare and attend with the person/family if appropriate.
• Make home visits where appropriate within organisations’ policies and procedures. Give people time to tell their stories and focus on ‘what matters to me’. Build trust with the person, providing non-judgemental support, respecting diversity and lifestyle choices. Work from a strength-based approach focusing on a person’s assets.

Support community groups and VCSE organisations to receive referrals

• Develop supportive relationships with local VCSE organisations, community groups and statutory services, to make timely, appropriate and supported referrals for the person being introduced.
• Work collectively with all local partners to ensure community groups are strong and sustainable
• Work with commissioners and local partners to identify unmet needs within the community and gaps in community provision.
• Encourage people who have been connected to community support through social prescribing to volunteer and give their time freely to others, building their skills and confidence and strengthening community resilience.
• In the long term develop a team of volunteers within your service to provide ‘buddying support’ for people, starting new groups and finding creative community solutions to local issues.
• Encourage people, their families and carers to provide peer support and to do things together, such as setting up new community groups or volunteering.

General tasks

Data capture

• Work sensitively with people, their families and carers to capture key information, enabling tracking of the impact of social prescribing on their health and wellbeing.
• Encourage people, their families and carers to provide feedback and to share their stories about the impact of social prescribing on their lives.
• Support referral agencies to provide appropriate information about the person they are referring. Provide appropriate feedback to referral agencies about the people they referred.
• Work closely within the MDT and with GP practices within the PCN to ensure that the social prescribing referral codes are inputted into clinical systems (as outlined in the Network Contract DES), adhering to data protection legislation and data sharing agreements.

• Professional development

• Work with your supervising GP and/or line manager (if different) to undertake continual personal and professional development, taking an active part in reviewing and developing the roles and responsibilities.
• Adhere to organisational policies and procedures, including confidentiality, safeguarding, lone working, information governance, and health and safety.
• Work with your supervising GPs, practice managers and network managers to access regular ‘supervision’, to enable you to deal effectively with the difficult issues that people present.

Miscellaneous

• Work as part of the healthcare team to seek feedback, continually improve the service and contribute to business planning.
• Undertake any tasks consistent with the level of the post and the scope of the role, ensuring that work is delivered in a timely and effective manner.
• Duties may vary from time to time, without changing the general character of the post or the level of responsibility.

London South Bank University Students’ Union is on a mission to totally transform the way a students’ union works in a modern university. We are now seeking an outstanding professional leader to join the organisation as Chief Executive to take forward its future development, operational delivery and management across a growing team of staff and volunteers.

About the role

LSBSU is the recognised representative body of 18,000 students at London South Bank University. Many of our students come from less privileged backgrounds and have had to overcome significant barriers in life simply to get to university.

South Bank students have high expectations and ambitions for themselves but lead complex lives where they are faced with the pressures of trying to balance their studies with work and juggling their lives at home. Many don’t identify primarily as students, but instead as carers, nurses, engineers, parents, designers, workers, entrepreneurs, apprentices, last chance learners, and Londoners.

In recent times, realising that much of our activity was not engaging significant parts of our student population, we have taken a long hard look at ourselves. We know that we can do so much more for our students.

Following a period of transition, we have set out an ambitious vision for 2025 that will take us on a journey of improvement and innovation. Our goal is to be a truly transformative students’ union that improves the lives of students on every course and beyond at London South Bank University. We have set a plan for year one, and goals for year five, but how we get there could take many routes and we will need you as CEO to steer that journey.

This is a brilliant opportunity to support an SU which is rebuilding itself from the ground up. We have invested heavily in our transformation, started to build a more inclusive and equitable workplace, and we have significant changes to governance in the pipeline for 2021.

As CEO, you will have the chance to bring people into the senior team and work collaboratively with our Officers, Board and University partner to establish the best way to achieve our goals for 2025.

Who we're looking for

Our ideal Chief Executive will be able to provide dynamic leadership, be motivated to change students’ lives and be passionate about building an organisation that is relevant and responsive to those it seeks to serve.

You need to have strong communication skills, emotional intelligence and an ability to build relationships with a diverse range of stakeholders. It is essential that you are committed to role modelling inclusive behaviours, building equity and removing the systemic barriers that exist to hold our students back.

We are actively looking to diversify our Trustee board and leadership team as this has not been as diverse as our student population in the past. We are especially interested to hear from candidates from BAME communities and/or candidates that have overcome other significant barriers in their lives.

If you are inspired by the job, we highly recommend you contact Peridot for an informal discussion and background on the role.

We believe that strong data and evaluation will accelerate Frontline’s impact and we need the Evaluation Manager to drive and lead this crucial area of work. They will have the exciting opportunity, alongside another Evaluation Manager to help build a strong, data-driven culture of reflection and continuous improvement in everything we do. 

The Evaluation Team lead in conducting evaluation projects that contribute to positive improvement both in our programmes and more broadly across the organisation. Equally important, the team works to equip, upskill and support other teams to monitor the effectiveness of their work. 

You’ll need to be highly analytical, with an excellent grounding in evaluation methodology. You’ll also need to collaborate across a charity that values employees’ different perspectives and experiences, and so strong communication and influencing skills are a must.

Hours: 4-5 days per week; permanent contract
Benefits: 7.5% employer matched pension after probation, flexible working, 25 days holiday per year (plus bank holidays and Christmas break) and a generous staff development budget

Application deadline: 2nd August, 11:59pm
First interviews: w/c 17th August
Second Interviews: w/c 24th August

About the role: 

The Head of Messaging is a new role for the Comms Hub and will lead our strategic communications work across key topic areas, from climate to migration and housing. This is a practical and hands on role as part of an active team securing thousands of media hits on an annual basis working with many of the most exciting progressive groups in the UK and abroad. 

Day-to-day this means selecting what topics we should be developing messaging on, selecting the organisers and organisations we should be working with (in collaboration with our wider team), planning our messaging workshops, researching existing framing work and commissioning polling and focus group work. After the workshops it means writing up short, practical messaging guides and working to apply this insight in multiple settings from media interviews to organisational communications strategies.

Some of this work will be long term - e.g. what should our overall framing of the economy look like - some of it will be issue specific and time bound - e.g. what should we say about the third runway at Heathrow - and some of it will be rapid response e.g. how do we respond to a particular court ruling. You’ll work closely with our spokespeople and Progressive Comms Network to ensure that the materials we develop are practically useful and actually used. 

To apply and to find out more, download the application pack from our site.

About you

Are you a people person? Can you earn people’s trust? Can you help people find the support they need? Are you fully committed to person-centred services? Will you always “go the extra mile” to make sure people find the best possible solution to their needs?

Our purpose

Within a community and primary care setting, we use social prescribing to help people reduce unnecessary NHS appointments and find appropriate community and non-clinical solutions to their needs. Within a hospital setting, we work with clinical staff to ensure that people can leave hospital at the right time and with the support and care they need.

Our mission is to help health and adult care services to work together to reduce unnecessary demands and make sure people receive the best possible services appropriate to their needs.

The role

We are recruiting Hospital & Community Navigators to work with people who are frail or vulnerable or unwell, people who are in danger of losing their independence, people who are being admitted to hospital, and people who are being discharged from hospital.

Navigators take time to understand people’s needs, they understand what services are available, and they work with professionals, volunteers, families, and individuals so things link together as they should. 

Working across both hospital and community settings, you will help prevent the need for people to be admitted to hospital, reduce over-reliance on GPs and/or home care providers, reduce social isolation and improve health and wellbeing.

You will work to understand your local community, link people together, and help develop more effective services. When solutions are needed, you will find them.

The job

You will be employed by one of the seven voluntary organisations involved in the partnership: Age UK Hertfordshire, British Red Cross, Carers in Herts, Dacortium, POhWER, Watford & Three Rivers Trust and Watford Community Housing. Oher partners may join. 

You will work as part of a locality team led by a Senior Navigator. We need to recruit locality teams that can work flexibly as required by their communities: so everyone will be expected to do occasional evening or weekend work – and we need to recruit some people who will work as part of a rota to deliver a service available 9:00 am to 6:00 pm seven days a week. You must be a driver with access to a vehicle. We can appoint people to work from home, but if your home is outside the locality to which you are attached, we will only pay travel expenses within your locality.

You will need to operate independently, use our case management database and communications systems, understand privacy rules and safeguarding, and work as part of a locality team supported by regular supervision, training and case conferences.

Please apply online stating how you meet the requirements for this post. If you are currently based outside Hertfordshire, please explain how you will relocated or commute if appointed. Shortlisted candidates will receive full details before interview. 

We are recruiting Hospital and Community Navigators to be based throughout Hertfordshire. The roles are permanent (subject to future funding). The roles are full-time but we will accept part-time applications and will try to find job-share partners.