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Inspiring Medical Students with Real-life Experiences

13 February 2025 By Esther Currie Leave a Comment

by Danny McShane, Helena Richards and Ruth Wyatt

Danny is a Community Link Worker (CLW) employed by Pilton Community Health Partnership

I have been delivering CLW information sessions with Edinburgh Medical students over the past 4 years as the CLW from Bangholm Medical Centre in northwest Edinburgh. I believe one of the most valuable aspects of these sessions for students is that they provide three-dimensional real-life case study examples and discussions to stimulate the learning and reflection of the students.

It is an opportunity for students to learn about how the CLW service works for patients and staff in GP practices and this helps the students to reflect on their understanding of the issues faced by different patients beyond strictly medical issues.

Through the case studies, the sessions permit us to explore in practical real-life terms how we CLWs engage with and support patients to access community services. And also, how this can improve their health and quality of life. As a CLW I find it interesting to hear how the students engage with the case studies and issues involved and how they understand from the patient’s point of view. I always find our discussions very rewarding around the fundamental factors affecting patient health and well-being such as social isolation (and what happens if a patient has no support network), poverty, health inequalities, inadequate housing etc. Some students are very aware of these social issues and others less so, so it’s always helpful to have these conversations, made hopefully more engaging as they reflect typical examples from our experience.

I enjoy when the students ask searching and practical questions about our role within the practice, the key demographics of those we support and what services we enable patients to access to meet their needs. We get to talk about issues faced by for example carers, parents, those in substandard housing, those impacted by trauma, those on low income unaware of their welfare entitlements and how to access these. Each session with each new class of students is a little different, but I like to think that every session provides an excellent opportunity for them to learn more about the CLW service and why our CLW service is so uniquely placed to bring community support closer to the practice patients that really need it.

Helena is the Edinburgh Community Project Manager with Carr Comm

I’ve been participating in this innovative programme for the last 4 years, where groups of 1st-year medical students are introduced to both Community Link Workers and their host Third Sector Organisations (TSOs) to learn about health inequalities and some of the projects which deal with these issues daily. It’s been an interesting and worthwhile experience to play a part, including observing the difference in the starting points between students as they visit our organisation, hear about what we do, ask questions and then discuss a case study together.

However, by the end, they have usually all engaged in discussion about the social determinants of health and how they’re affecting patients at the local practices – and what we are doing to mitigate these effects. It’s great to meet them all, hear a bit from them and be part of a conversation about how life affects people in our communities, why that might be and how we as professionals can be part of making a difference, and how the relationship between medicine and community matters.

Ruth is the Senior Greenspace Officer at ELGT (Edinburgh and Lothians Greenspace Trust)

Over the years we have had the privilege of working with many medical students, from different backgrounds and walks of life. The main thing that comes to mind when working with these future medics, is that they all want a better outcome for the people they are going to be treating and working with, in lots of different ways. It’s fantastic to be able to present the work we do, getting them involved practically, where they can be part of a GP practice, get hands on experience of being a CLW and have the opportunity to experience the therapeutic programmes that are available out in communities too.

It’s a real pleasure to be able to develop relationships and build on the work these students have already done, to have the skills under their belts to be working within practices, getting them into the working life of a CLW and offering a unique experience that will broaden their ways of working for years to come. The long-term impacts these opportunities will bring play a huge part in treating people in a sustainable way moving forward.

As a third sector organisation, we are very grateful to get the chance to come together in this way, we are passionate about the communities we work with having access to quality local greenspaces, to help support their health and wellbeing. It allows us to promote this in a positive and practical way, which is only possible where you have all these services working together in collaboration. The connectedness is essential and it’s lovely to see them valuing this.

A Message From Mike Massaro-Mallinson…

27 June 2023 By Esther Currie Leave a Comment

I’ve recently had the honour and responsibility of being appointed Interim Chief Officer for the Edinburgh Integration Joint Board, to lead the Edinburgh Health and Social Care Partnership.

As one of my first priorities I want to reach out to the great organisations we work with to make Edinburgh a better place to care and be cared for. I know that the work you do to support our communities is so important to achieving that goal. As some of you already know, I started my career in the third sector and experienced first-hand how many people and their carers rely heavily on community services to stay safe, independent and healthy.

Without a third and community sector I know that people would be more socially isolated, would not be as connected with their community, may be unable to stay in their own homes or just may not cope with life.

You may be aware that we have launched an improvement plan for the Edinburgh Health and Social Care Partnership in response to recent inspections. As part of our plan, prevention and early intervention is one of our priorities in year 1. We therefore want to build on the work of our Community Mobilisation programme and the Edinburgh Wellbeing Pact and develop our early intervention strategy. Working with organisations across Edinburgh will be crucial to success and we are building on what we have and already getting started.

You will hear more soon, if you haven’t already but just wanted you to be aware of our direction. I am very much looking forward to working with you in my new role.

Adult Protection is Everyone’s Business…

14 April 2023 By Esther Currie Leave a Comment

by Marion Findlay (Director of Services, Volunteer Edinburgh)

Adult Protection is an issue for everyone who works or volunteers in the voluntary sector. Whether you are delivering a specialist mental health service, running a charity shop, managing a community garden or involved in any one of our sector’s thousands of activities in the city – the eyes, ears, skill and experience of your team can be vital in keeping people safe from harm.

A recent joint inspection of Adult Support & Protection in Edinburgh by the Care Inspectorate, Healthcare Improvement Scotland and HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland identified that the voluntary sector plays an invaluable and vital role in supporting adults at risk of harm.

[Read more…]

Representing the Third Sector at Buckingham Palace

21 March 2023 By EVOC Comms Leave a Comment

by Michele Mason (Area Manager, Change Mental Health and Chair of Edinburgh’s Mental Health Forum)

EVOC were asked by Edinburgh’s Lord Provost, Robert Aldridge, to nominate someone from the 3^rd sector to attend the Loyal Addresses by Privileged Bodies event at Buckingham Palace on Thu 9 Mar 2023. EVOC nominated myself as Area Manager for Change Mental Health and as the representative from the Health and Social Care Partnership for the work we have achieved in Edinburgh.

So, the early alarm at 4am was a struggle, but I was fortunate as some of my fellow travellers had further to come than from sunny Leith. With a very deserted Waverley station to greet us, off we went on the 5.40am ‘Flying Scotsman’.

My travelling companions were:
– Robert Aldridge (Lord Provost, City of Edinburgh)
– Steve Brown (City Officer, City of Edinburgh Council)
– Joe Goldblatt (Emeritus Professor)
– Heather Yang (Core Services Manager, Volunteer Edinburgh)
– Debora Kayembe (Rector, The University of Edinburgh)
– Hanna Beaton (Branch Holova, AUGB Edinburgh)

Weather warnings had been issued, and rightly so, as by the time we passed Dunbar all we could see was snow. Just under an hour late, we arrived in a very wet Kings Cross, by now we realised that this was a very special event we had been invited too. Quick snack and off to the Palace we went.

Once we deposited our coats and umbrellas it was off to get our name badges and a beautiful programme – to see all of our names in the booklet and those of other people that you usually only see on TV was really something.

We were in the gorgeous ballroom with the Countess of Wessex String Orchestra playing a selection of music- as the room stated to fill; you could feel the excitement in the room.

1:15pm: The King arrives. There were 27 addresses with the Archbishop of Canterbury being 1^st. Our Lord Provost was 9^th, we were all on the edge of our seats, but we need not have worried Robert was fantastic!

After the last ‘Address’ and the Kings response, it was off to the picture gallery for the Reception. I don’t know what I was expecting but it wasn’t what happened. Lieutenant Colonel Johnny Thompson gathered the Edinburgh group together and within about a minute, the King was standing with us all chatting and shaking our hand, asking us all who we were and what we did. He wanted to discuss with me the impact on peoples mental health due to the pandemic.

This felt very surreal, as it felt almost normal, a nice man having a pleasant chat with everyone – loads of eye contact and open questions, what could have felt uneasy or nerve wracking wasn’t, as the King made us all feel so at ease.

As he moved on we realised just how many people were in the Picture Gallery that we could chat too – again another once in a lifetime opportunity. So Debora and I took a wee wander – first person we spotted was Sadiq Khan – Mayor of London – a very interesting discussion around politics in London and Scotland. Followed by Lord Patten ex-governor of Hong Kong. We spoke about how I remembered Lord Patton leaving Hong Kong aboard the Royal Yacht Britania with his 2 dogs – whiskey and soda – and how the Yacht is now berthed in Leith where I stay.

Dame Katherine Grainger, chair of UK sports, Sir Menzies Campbell ex Liberal leader, the Governor of the Bank of England, Dr Andrew Baily were just some of the many, many people we were able to speak to.

As we wander the room, we realised that the rest of our travel party were doing the same, spotting people they wanted to chat too and them to us. As it was nearly time to leave we regrouped and chatted about what a day it had been, cloakroom for coats and umbrellas and out to the Mall.

Traveling back to Kings Cross we realised that the Palace staff had kindly put my very wet umbrella in a Buckingham Palace gold carrier bag, what a memento. Arriving at the station, we discovered the train we were due to take had been cancelled so it was rush to get on the next available service. We got into Waverly Station 18 hours after our departure with a sense of relief that we had made it back through the snow and weather warnings. But it was also with a sense of amazement at what a day it had been, a privilege.

Link Working – more important now than ever.

3 March 2023 By Esther Currie 1 Comment

By Community Link Workers, Calum Barry (Health All Round) and Rebecca Goodman (Caring in Craigmillar)

Social prescribing is an approach for connecting people to non-medical sources of support or resources in the community which are likely to help with the health problems they are experiencing.

There are various models of social prescribing in place across Scotland. Many of these involve a social practitioner, often referred to as a link worker, social prescriber or community navigator, who works with people in a holistic, person-centred approach to link the individual to local resources. 

Having been in post as Link Workers since 2017 we have experienced many changes in the role and the way it is received.

We have expanded from 4 link workers to 24 and now cover 45 practices across Edinburgh. We have seen services come and go, peoples’ needs change, and even worked through a global pandemic.

In the beginning, when the role was just getting established, of course we received lower referrals and our caseloads were smaller. This gave us the luxury of time, time to network with other services in our local areas and time to work more intensively with individuals, accompanying them to new groups and activities.

As the service developed and reputation grew, we saw huge increases in referrals and our caseloads expanded. A great result but with it of course comes less time and an impact on what we can achieve for people.

However, along with a change in referral numbers we also seen a change in need, a shift from supporting people to access social activities and wellbeing supports, to assisting more with basic needs such as financial issues, housing, welfare rights, and access to food banks.

Although we are not a crisis service, increasingly we find ourselves working with those that are in crisis now.

It can sometimes feel far removed from the days of accompanying someone to an art group or cooking class. These things do still happen but it may take multiple appointments to get to this outcome and we may not have the capacity to commit to this.

People struggle to consider attending a group they might enjoy which could benefit their mental health, if they can’t afford the bus to get there, wonder if they will have money to put the heating on, or are worried they may be facing eviction next month.

Link Workers can help them to access the services they need to help tackle these huge priorities, so they can then have the capacity to start thinking about the other stuff. Without having link workers and other services within the GP practice teams some of these vital links may never have been made.

People’s needs are greater than ever and so the Link Worker role feels more important now than ever before.

Matching the Needs of Third Sector Organisations with NHS Suppliers

8 November 2022 By Esther Currie Leave a Comment

By Stuart Barrie, Operations Manager, Voluntary Sector Gateway West Lothian

This is a wee blog to fill you in on the Community Benefit Gateway (CBG).

In the simplest of terms, it’s a platform set up to connect NHS suppliers to third sector organisations that may need a hand with something.

How does it work?
Organisations like charities or community groups highlight a ‘need’ – could be painting a building, fitting a carpet, donating equipment or even good old volunteering. That ‘need’ goes on the Community Benefit Gateway website and if any NHS supplier can help with that need – they do. Simples.

Now I know what you are thinking. This is too good to be true. But that really is exactly what happens.

It’s free, gets help where it is needed and companies that supply the NHS, give back to communities across Scotland. Everyone’s a winner!

There’s a few other bits and pieces in the process, like registering on the platform and identifying what your need is – hopefully it’s something someone can help with.

Find out more
To learn more about the Community Benefit Gateway and how your organisation can get involved, we’re hosting an online info session (Tue 6 Dec, 12noon – 12.45pm).

It’s for voluntary and community organisations across Edinburgh and the Lothians who think they could benefit from support in the form of work or equipment.

We’ll be chatting about what you can and cannot ask for through the Gateway and offering you the chance to ask questions too.

Register now

A one of a kind, life-changing service in Scotland: Reflections on Milestone Intermediate Care Unit

16 June 2022 By Esther Currie Leave a Comment

by Dr Gerry Mitchell (a social policy researcher)

“I came here so broken and uncertain, and the beginning of this journey started in room 9. I am leaving with so much hope and determination for the next chapter.”

In two bungalows set back in a quiet road of the city, an intermediate care service comprised of a ten bedded residential home called Milestone (MICU), was created, at pace, in response to increased pressure for Edinburgh’s hospitals to make effective use of beds during the pandemic. The Waverley Care staff who run Milestone , and their partners, have supported over 80 people experiencing homelessness or at risk of experiencing it, since the crisis began. It has enabled them to isolate, recover from acute interventions and access the multi-disciplinary support that will enhance recovery and enable a successful discharge to safe and appropriate accommodation.

The service has since established itself within the system of local care, support and housing and has a track record of achieving remarkable outcomes. Last year, EVOC was commissioned to write a business case to keep Milestone open and I was recruited to work on it. Many hours of interviews and meetings followed: time and input generously provided by Maria Arnold, EVOC Senior Development Officer, the Milestone steering group, and staff from Waverley Care, Edinburgh Access Practice, the Cyrenians, The Royal Infirmary, NHS Lothian Public Health and Harm Reduction Team and others.

Reflecting on my experience of the evaluation, four aspects stand out:

1. People using MICU experience the most extreme health inequalities and barriers to health intervention in our society.

GP John Budd was one of the first steering group members I spoke with. He had been instrumental in getting the service started. As a GP at Edinburgh Access Practice, a specialist surgery for patients experiencing homelessness, with a one stop shop of services including welfare rights workers, community health workers and addictions care, John talked me through an audit of his patients in 2018, who had similar profiles to those people who had stayed at Milestone. The statistics are shocking. The average age of death was 46.5 years for men and 41 years for women. Their health profile was comparable to that of a general population cohort in their 80s. Equally shocking was that many causes of death among people experiencing homelessness are reported to be from treatable conditions (Field et al, 2019).

Interviewing John and others instrumental in setting the service up, such as Claire Mackintosh, Consultant in the Royal Infirmary’s Infectious Diseases Unit, it was clear that individuals experiencing homelessness experience a range of barriers to receiving timely, effective healthcare intervention. They often need to negotiate numerous and complex referrals systems. While they may be seen by a number of different services, there may be duplication and unmet needs/gaps. They experience higher acute hospital admission rates than the most deprived cohort of the population (Waugh et al, 2018), with twice the Accident and Emergency attendance rates. They may also stay in hospital three times longer than the most deprived cohort, reflecting ongoing and unaddressed care and housing needs (Homeless Link, 2014). Shockingly again, one study found that 70% of people experiencing homelessness were being discharged from hospital back to the streets without having their housing or ongoing care needs properly addressed (St Mungo’s, 2017).

2. Specialist intermediate care units reduce secondary health care costs (and are likely to do the same for housing costs)

When step-down intermediate care services are introduced, they result in lower A&E visits, more effective planned discharges and reduce the average length of inpatient admissions. Between April 2020 and April 2021, 43 step-down referrals to MICU were patients from NHS Lothian acute sites who, without Milestone, would have stayed in hospital. This was a saving to NHS Lothian of 240 occupied acute hospital bed days, a total of £156,720.

Patients with experience of homelessness have 60% more outpatient appointments when compared to a most deprived cohort but are estimated to miss 28% of them. However, with ongoing contact with a hospital in-reach service, one large-scale study found that they attended twice as many appointments. This leads to engagement with, for example, follow-up endoscopies, procedures, and treatment such as surgery or cancer therapy (Field et al., 2019.)

Managing the transfer of care and planned discharge into sustained accommodation is also key, not just the exit from the acute sector (Cornes et al 2021). On admission to MICU, 50 out of the 80 people who have stayed there, had no fixed abode or were in temporary housing, while eight could not return to their tenancy. On planned discharge from MICU, 83% moved into sustainable accommodation. The MICU is therefore likely to provide significant savings to City of Edinburgh housing services associated with the reduction in temporary housing costs.

3. Barriers created by the NHS and other services may reinforce the trauma

Rachael Kenyon, at Cyrenians, manages the MICU hospital in-reach team at the Royal Infirmary. She and her colleagues make the initial contact with potential residents of Milestone while they are still in-patients there. They manage the patient’s referral and also support them throughout their time in the MICU and on into sustainable accommodation. Development of trusted relationships with people using the service is a vital element of facilitating successful engagement with a range of health and social care services. Rachael explained the adverse consequences of stigma in a clinical setting. Patients may be discharged rather than having their transfer delayed[1] or pain medication may be withheld due to judgements about substance use. Changing the cultural attitude to patients both with an addiction to drugs and/or alcohol and who are experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness, is an explicit objective of the service. And Rachael and her colleagues’ roles include modelling trauma-informed practice to their colleagues in clinical settings.

4. Trauma-informed multi-disciplinary practice delivers successful outcomes

The staff I met during my time working with Milestone are committed to its work. They approached the evaluation from a desire to improve their own practice in order to further support the people they work with. Central to that is to acknowledge the barriers present in their own organisational cultures and processes and address them through multi-disciplinary working, training and other reform.

During the interviews with MICU partners, I gathered some remarkable lifechanging success stories of those who had been supported at Milestone. Some were the result of some very effective short-term interventions but, more often than not, they were the result of people knowing that, on discharge, they could return to Milestone if needed. That it was there for them longer-term. And, equally, they knew that if they did return, they would continue to receive consistent, trauma-informed support. The evidence compiled for the Milestone Intermediate Care unit business case has demonstrated that an overreliance on short-term performance indicators and viewing individuals as inputs and outputs to a system doesn’t work with this complex and marginalised group of people.

_{[1]And this is confirmed by evidence elsewhere. For example, Cornes et al. (2021).}

You can read the full evaluation on the impact of Milestone here

Keeping The Promise for Edinburgh’s Children

23 May 2022 By Esther Currie Leave a Comment

by Keith Dyer, Quality Assurance and Compliance Manager, Education and Children’s Directorate, City of Edinburgh Council

You may recall that back in 2016, the First Minister made a commitment that Scotland would “come together and love its most vulnerable children to give them the childhood they deserve.” She commissioned the Independent Care Review to look at what needed to change to give young people the best support. Between 2017 and 2020, the review team worked to figure out how to keep that promise. The aim was to identify and deliver lasting change in Scotland’s ‘care system’, leaving a legacy that will transform the wellbeing of infants, children, and young people.

About the care review
In February 2020, the care review’s work reported on their work. One of the reports, The Promise, sets how we, in Scotland, should change the way we approach supporting children and young people who are in care whether that’s living with their grandparents or an aunt, in foster care or getting support in their family home.

So, what does this mean for us, working in Edinburgh?
A great deal of the Promise’s focus is rightly on making sure we do the best to support families to keep children at home and in their communities. For children and young people who cannot live at home with parents – known as being care experienced – Edinburgh’s Promise has a vision that Edinburgh’s children will be loved, safe and respected. This will mean a clear focus on the right support, at the right time for families, for as long as they need it. Edinburgh’s Promise is the delivery arrangements for the transformational change that keeping the Promise require and is part of the Edinburgh Children’s Partnership. Keeping Edinburgh’s Promise will take the involvement and effort of all colleagues, teams, services and organisations working with Edinburgh’s Children and their families.

Edinburgh’s Promise and what you can do
Our 2021-2024 Promise Plan was built on five fundamentals:

what matters to children and families
listening
poverty
children’s rights
language

These principles could end up meaning different things to different colleagues in Edinburgh, whether they are in services providing direct support to children and their families, or indirect support to those services.

The Edinburgh’s Promise Fundamentals paper unpacks what these fundamentals mean for all of us in Edinburgh, and what delivering on them looks like at a personal, team, service, and organisational level. For example, ‘what matters to children and families’ is about supporting that the child and their family’s needs, rather than delivering what the service usually ‘delivers’. The poverty fundamentals include not blaming or judging people for not having enough money to live on.

For all colleagues, they offer a tangible and meaningful guide as to what keeping Edinburgh’s Promise entails for them in their day-to-day work with Edinburgh’s children and their families.

Please take time to read the fundamentals paper and consider with your teams how you will apply them and what changes you may have to make in your Organisation to keep Edinburgh’s Promise.

If you and your team would like to hear more at first-hand about Edinburgh’s Promise and what it means for your organisation and services, please contact Keith Dyer: keith.dyer@edinburgh.gov.uk

A Leap of Faith…

7 March 2022 By Esther Currie Leave a Comment

by Marion Findlay (Director of Services, Volunteer Edinburgh) on the new community commissioning process for the Communities Mental Health & Wellbeing Fund in Edinburgh.

It is exactly four months since our colleague Maria Arnold posted her blog “Put the Money Where Our Mouth Is…” on the EVOC website. On 2nd November she reflected on the flaws and tensions that surround the traditional ways that public money is distributed. She issued a plea to organisations across the city to take a leap of faith in participating in a new process to award funds that would support the mental health of communities disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, and those experiencing multiple marginalisation.

Many thanks again to all of you (in over 170 organisations) who have taken this leap of faith. Maria’s prediction that it would be a nerve-wracking process with a ridiculously tight timeframe has proven to be correct – one participant reported it being a “bewildering but exciting process carried out at breakneck speed”.

There have been criticisms of the timescale, the online format, and the challenge of identifying how city-wide and locality services best fit together. But praise for the collaborative approach, the opportunity to work together to share ideas, experiences, and be supported to do something new or different – or do more of the things we know work well.

Stepping out of the traditional flat-grant way of awarding funds is a challenge. Decades of writing grant applications in a formal (and competitive) style has instilled a mindset and approach that is not easy to shake off. Decision making by consensus is easy to say but more difficult to do. It feels like we have just dipped our toe in the Community Commissioning process, but the progress and learning so far stands us well for the future.

This process has brought together widely differing groups. Many deliver complex and expert mental health services; others offer lighter touch support, physical activities and informal connections. Whether you are a community garden, a football team, provide counselling or therapy or run dancing or painting groups – this process demonstrates that mental health is truly everyone’s business.

A Reflection on the Past Year

8 October 2021 By Esther Currie 1 Comment

To mark the publication of the Edinburgh Community Link Worker 2020-21 Review, Julie Roxburgh – Deep End Community Link Worker, Wester Hailes (The Health Agency) – share’s her reflections on the past year.

I came back to work in October 2020, after a year of maternity leave. Never in my wildest dreams could I have predicted, while setting my out-of-office, that the world would be such a different place in 12 months time. The role I had paused suddenly felt very different. It had adapted and responded, which of course was always what being a Community Link Worker (CLW) was all about.

The first real change was adjusting to working from home, which certainly made me realise there was lots of things I had previously taken for granted. The informal chat with colleagues, the company at 11am coffee breaks, the feeling of being part of my patient community, the buzz of a multidisciplinary community health building… the list could go on.

After quickly getting my head around MS teams, calling on my CLW colleagues helped ease some of my worries. These guys were experts now. They had adapted overnight, were 8 months into a new way of working and hearing their stories was inspiring – from delivering food provision to those most vulnerable to supporting people to become digitally equipped and connected. One piece of advice I was very thankful for, was to remember the power of listening. All too often as workers we get one step ahead, and especially as CLW’s, we want to help, to provide something tangible, something concrete. However, after the year we had all been through, just talking to someone, checking in, listening to how they are feeling that day, was worth its weight in gold. After all, the call that comes right in the middle of your to-do-list on a busy day, could be the most meaningful thing in someone’s week.

A challenge for me was adjusting to telephone contact. I found there was so much that I missed from meeting with a patient face-to-face. Silences felt more awkward, I missed all the subtle pieces of body language and simply not being able to offer someone a tissue for comfort really felt difficult. It has been a learning curve for sure, but has provided me with new skills to take forward. It has made me really go the extra mile to make a connection with my patients, get to know them, something which felt much easier when you simply knew what they looked like. On the flip side of this I have been really surprised how positive and receptive people have been to online and telephone services. For some, telephone counselling or online groups have actually been more favourable, and options have never felt too limited. Everyone has really gone above and beyond to help in some way. This is all really thanks to the third sector, who during the pandemic, have really shown their strength and innovation in supporting their communities.

Although telephone contact was here to stay it felt really important for me to get back to the surgery. Thankfully with my colleague’s support and that of The Health Agency, we agreed I could come back at least 1 day per week. Feeling physically part of the team again made a huge difference to my general wellbeing at work, and referrals increased, because as they say, out of sight out of mind.

So where are we now?

There is no question we are still feeling the pressures and challenges of this pandemic. Ways of working have changed, but with some restrictions now eased, services have been able to open up again, providing vital face-to-face support. I now see people in the surgery if they wish, which has been wonderful to just be able to give people this option. I think now, more than ever, a multidisciplinary team approach is so vital, and the CLWs have shown their value in this. When faced with a huge challenge, I’m really proud my team was able to take the opportunity to shine, and show exactly what CLWs can do.

A day after writing this blog I phoned a patient opportunistically, just to check in and see how they were getting on. At the end of the call, they thanked me and said;

“it’s made my day speaking to you, thanks for phoning. It’s a lonely life when you don’t have friends and speaking to someone like you really helps”