Health and Wellbeing News, Events and Opportunities – February 2025
February 20, 2025
Welcome to Cumbria CVS’s Health and Wellbeing News, Events and Opportunities for January ’25. This page will be updated regularly, so we are delighted you have landed here today and hope that you will keep coming back for updates during the month.
To catch up on our News, Events & Opportunities from January 2024, click here
Lots of the News, Events and Opportunities information will also be appearing in our regular Health and Wellbeing Bulletin. This Bulletin is sent out to all current members of our two Networks: Action for Health and the Mental Health Provider Forum. If you have found this page useful why not join either or both Networks by following these links:
News – we will be using this as an opportunity to pick out particularly important/interesting articles from our most recent Bulletin and/or highlighting information that might be time sensitive.
Events – we will be using this as an opportunity to highlight events of interest to organisations interested in health and care issues including Network events. Most of these will be local Cumbria events but some maybe regional.
Opportunities – we will be using this to highlight health and care focused funding and project opportunities, representative roles and working groups you might want to get involved in and much more. These will focus on Cumbria but may also include regional opportunities.
If you’ve seen something you think we should be sharing, let us know! Email us:
Clare Edwards claree@cumbriacvs.org.uk
Holly Ferguson hollyf@cumbriacvs.org.uk
Sarah Penn sarah.penn@cumbriacvs.org.uk
COUNTYWIDE – NEW Government Priority areas for NHS 2025/26
Key priorities
• Continue to reduce elective care waiting times, with 65 per cent of patients waiting less than 18 weeks.
• improve ambulance response and A&E waiting times, with a minimum of 78 per cent of patients seen within four hours
• improve patients’ access to general practice (GP) and urgent dental care access, including 700,000 additional urgent dental appointments; and
• accelerate patient flow in mental health crisis and outpatient care pathways.
Key developments
• reform through development of neighbourhood health services models to prevent admissions and improve access to care.
• asks systems to improve productivity to balance system budgets and improve quality and safety of services, particularly maternity and neonatal services.
• More funding and decision-making is devolved to systems, letting local leaders lead. Lifting most ring-fences will give them agency to innovate and use scarce resources to best effect. NHS England and the government commit to back local leaders to make difficult decisions, including reducing or stopping lower-value activity.
• The finances remain very difficult and will be incredibly stretching. Despite a 4 per cent spending uplift at the budget, this will feel more like 2 per cent real-terms increase for most systems once particular cost pressures are accounted for. Crucially, to balance the books, providers are asked to make eye-watering 4 per cent efficiency savings – before new local pressures are accounted for. This is almost double last year’s 2.2 per cent target and more than four times the NHS’s historical rate of productivity growth at 0.9 per cent. Systems will have to make tough and unpopular decisions over service provision, closing some relatively lower value services to balance the books.
• Balancing reform and recovery will be key. The guidance is more about recovery than reform, but putting the NHS on sustainable path will require more radical reform and transformation to deliver the three shifts. The ten-year health plan will need to work out how to do recovery and reform at the same time.
For more information follow this link:
https://www.nhsconfed.org/publications/202526-nhs-priorities-and-operational-planning-guidance-what-you-need-know
NORTH CUMBRIA NHS area – North East & N Cumbria Integrated Care Board meeting summary
The Integrated Delivery Report and Finance Report were presented, as was the Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response (EPPR) Self-Assessment, the Elective Care Reform Package, and a paper on Quality and Safety – Urgent and Emergency Care.
Follow the link below to see a SUMMARY from Lisa Taylor (Health and Wellbeing Programme Director, VONNE, VCSE Partnership Programme lead
& NENC ICB VCSE representative)
The meeting recording and papers can be viewed on the ICB’s website here.
Follow the link for Lisa’s summary:
COUNTYWIDE – NEW report More than money: The lifelong wellbeing impact of disability benefits
By tracking the wellbeing of disability benefits recipients and those who are not receiving disability benefits but may be eligible over time, the findings of this report suggest that receiving disability benefits significantly enhances life satisfaction of recipients, potentially reducing their anxiety levels and improving their wellbeing overall. The observed increase in life satisfaction among disability benefit recipients suggests that these benefits mean more than a simple cash transfer to those who receive them. This boost in wellbeing can be expressed in economic terms and translates to an average annual wellbeing improvement valued at £12,300 per person.
More than money: The lifelong wellbeing impact of disability benefits
NORTH CUMBRIA NHS area – Opportunity to shape the NENC ICB Work & Health Programme workshop 14.03.2025
You are invited to an initial workshop to help shape the delivery model:
ICB Health & Growth Design Delivery Workshop: Help shape the delivery model
Friday, 14th March, 10am – 3.30pm, Ramside Hall, Durham, DH1 1TD
This workshop will focus on early intervention, prevention, and workforce support within the health and care system. Engagement from key partners across the sector is essential to ensure the development of a holistic, person-centred approach that:
This programme involves adopting a health and growth mission approach for the region that will aim to identify and support individuals who are recently out of work, or at risk of becoming out of work, because of unmet health needs. It is enabled by a new £18 million investment into the North East and North Cumbria to deliver a one-year programme as an accelerator site – with the ICB working with local partners to address the complex causes of economic inactivity. Cross-sector partners across our regional Integrated Care System will be pivotal in shaping the delivery of this programme.
For those not able to attend 14.03.2025 Dan Jackson, Director of Policy, Public Affairs and Stakeholder Affairs, NENC ICB, will be attending to discuss the new programme of work at the next VCSE Partnership Forum meeting 20.03.2025
Lisa Taylor, VCSE Partnership Programme Lead and member of the Health and Growth Accelerator Steering Group, VONNE, alongside Clare Edwards, Health Partnerships Manager and member of Waiting Well Advisory Board, Cumbria CVS, will be attending.
If you have an interest in shaping this programme of work we encourage as many VCSE sector colleagues as possible to take this opportunity to join us.
You can register for this ICB workshop on Boost here.
The VCSE Partnership Forum takes place on Thursday, 20th March, 1pm – 3pm. If you’d like to join us for the next Forum you can register on the VONNE website here.
EDEN area – Appleby Health and Wellbeing Event
📅 Date: 18th March
📍 Location: Appleby Hub, 16, Chapel Street, CA16 6QR
⏰ Event Time: 11am – 2pm (Please arrive by 10:30 for setup)
We would love for you to host a stall at the event to share information about your services, offer interactive activities or provide demonstrations.
Stalls are free of charge and tables and chairs will be provided. If you have any specific requirements, please let us know in your booking form. There is available Wi-Fi at the event if you wish to bring a laptop, but please ensure it is fully charged as there is limited access to electrical sockets.
How to book:
To secure your stall, please complete our online booking form here: https://bit.ly/4hl5eSA
Once submitted, you’ll receive a confirmation email and we’ll be in touch with further details closer to the event. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.
Please find attached a stallholder poster for yourself, with a little more information and an event poster for the community to publicise the event.
We hope you can join us and look forward to working together to support our community’s health and wellbeing!
COUNTYWIDE – Trauma Awareness Training 28.02.2025 Whitehaven (in person)
Trauma Awareness Training
On the 28th February Safety Net are running Trauma Awareness Training, there are places available still. This course is ideal for professionals in social work, education, healthcare, mental health, and community services, as well as anyone interested in understanding the impact of trauma to better support individuals in need.
The training will be held at The Solway Hall, Lowther Street, Whitehaven, CA28 7SH between 9am and 4:30pm
Contact juan@cya.org.uk to book a place
COUNTYWIDE – The Big Mental Health Survey is here
The Big Mental Health Survey is a chance for all of us to speak about our experiences of mental health and the mental health system too.
This information is crucial. It’s will help us better understand where the problems are today, so we can start fixing the mental health crisis tomorrow. The responses will inform our work pushing for better laws, building better services and creating a system that works for everyone. That couldn’t be more important.
Who can take part?
Mind have an ambitious target to get 15,000 responses and we want to hear from you!
To complete the survey:
• You have to be 16+
• You have to have experience using either primary care services (like your GP or practice nurse), charity mental health support services or apps in the last 12 months.
The survey is live until March 31. The questions are about experiences of mental health and the mental health system, and it takes around 20-25 minutes to complete.
How you can help Mind …….Share the survey with your friends, family, colleagues, supporters, networks and service users
Please share this URL > https://tinyurl.com/bmhsurvey25
We’d love your support to help us get as broad a range of views as possible.
SOUTH CUMBRIA NHS area – Women’s Health survey
The Lancashire and South Cumbria Women’s Health Hub would like to know women’s thoughts about Women’s Health Hubs located in the community (eg at a GP practice or community venue) and also an online Women’s Health Hub (accessed on your phone/tablet/computer).
Follow this link for more information and to reach the survey:
https://www.healthierlsc.co.uk/VCFSE/news-and-media/latest-news/womens-health-hub-survey
The survey is anonymous. If you’d like to view the Women’s Health Hub Privacy notice on how they store data, click here.
The survey has been developed to provide evidence and impetus for the ICB to develop Women’s Sexual Health services and support which will work best for the women of Lancashire and South Cumbria.
Please feel free to share this with people who access your services.
NORTH CUMBRIA NHS area – Opportunity to shape the NENC ICB Work & Health Programme workshop 14.03.2025
You are invited to an initial workshop to help shape the delivery model:
ICB Health & Growth Design Delivery Workshop: Help shape the delivery model
Friday, 14th March, 10am – 3.30pm, Ramside Hall, Durham, DH1 1TD
This workshop will focus on early intervention, prevention, and workforce support within the health and care system. Engagement from key partners across the sector is essential to ensure the development of a holistic, person-centred approach that:
This programme involves adopting a health and growth mission approach for the region that will aim to identify and support individuals who are recently out of work, or at risk of becoming out of work, because of unmet health needs. It is enabled by a new £18 million investment into the North East and North Cumbria to deliver a one-year programme as an accelerator site – with the ICB working with local partners to address the complex causes of economic inactivity. Cross-sector partners across our regional Integrated Care System will be pivotal in shaping the delivery of this programme.
For those not able to attend 14.03.2025 Dan Jackson, Director of Policy, Public Affairs and Stakeholder Affairs, NENC ICB, will be attending to discuss the new programme of work at the next VCSE Partnership Forum meeting 20.03.2025
Lisa Taylor, VCSE Partnership Programme Lead and member of the Health and Growth Accelerator Steering Group, VONNE, alongside Clare Edwards, Health Partnerships Manager and member of Waiting Well Advisory Board, Cumbria CVS, will be attending.
If you have an interest in shaping this programme of work we encourage as many VCSE sector colleagues as possible to take this opportunity to join us.
You can register for this ICB workshop on Boost here.
The VCSE Partnership Forum takes place on Thursday, 20th March, 1pm – 3pm. If you’d like to join us for the next Forum you can register on the VONNE website here.
