Who do we all help?
Millions of lives are touched by VCSE organisations within BOB.
Main beneficiaries being served are:
- People with physical disabilities
- People or households living in poverty
- People with long-term health conditions
- People in rural areas
- People with mental health conditions
- People with learning disabilities
It can be misleading in the VCSE sector to think about people purely as beneficiaries and to think about beneficiaries as one individual separate from their family and community: much of the sector was built up with as well as for people who need support and assists people in the context of their families and communities.
When all aspects of sector energy are taken into account (including expenditure, volunteer time, sale of free goods and in-kind support), the financial value of the VCSE sector is more than £2 billion. This energy produces £7.4 billion of added value in Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West.
Making sense of the impact of the VCSE sector in non-financial ways is challenging at national, regional and local level because it will never be possible to ‘nail down’ who does what, where and how precisely. Instead, it must be accepted that attribution of impact will always be shared.
The top five impact areas in which VCSE organisations in BOB as a whole report that they make a strong impact are:
- We give people the confidence to manage their lives
- We enhance the cultural and artistic life of the community
- We improve health and wellbeing
- We reduce social isolation
- We empower people in the community
Local VCSE impact is dependent on and proportionate to local societal need, geography and demography: in BOB, the VCSE sector is stronger on arts and culture than other parts of England & Wales and its services to our rural communities are significant.
What have we achieved?
Achievements:
- Agreed four shared values and eight partnership actions between the VCSE sector and the NHS in BOB
- Supported allocation of £4m of Health Inequalities funding in Oxfordshire and Berkshire West
- Secured the addition of Dying Well as one the Integrated Care priorities for BOB
- Helped to draft the Ageing Well heading of the Integrated Care priorities
- Got VCSE voices into eight formal or semi-formal BOB committees or groups
- Celebrated that the VCSE in BOB comprises 7,500 registered organisations, driven by 44,500 full-time equivalent employees and 162,000 regular volunteers, attracting over £2bn of income[1].
Our Achievements this year were about setting the conditions for strong NHS-VCSE partnership in BOB in the future.
How will we work together in future?
The ICB and the VCSE Health Alliance are working within the Integrated Care Partnership to build an integrated care system in Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West.
There is a long, shared history of integration and partnership between the VCSE and NHS, especially within Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West – including Wokingham, Reading and West Berkshire districts.
We want to build on these current local partnerships, and those between the NHS and VCSE on specific aspects of delivery.
We will learn honestly from our experiences of partnership and the different perspectives we bring. Our focus is on how we can improve outcomes and reduce health inequalities by working better together. We are not starting from a blank page, but we are working in the new context of the Health & Care Act 2022, which brings new partnership opportunities we want to grasp.
The NHS belongs to the people.[2] In BOB, it is made up of a small number of very large Trusts with significant legal duties and a substantial public budget, as well as 182 dental practices, 160 pharmacies and 157 GP surgeries organised into 50 primary care networks. Collectively the NHS in BOB spends around £3bn per year and employs around 60,000 people.
We recognise the differing professional, regulatory and cultural contexts of the VCSE and the NHS and consider them to be complementary. We know that we have more in common as we are all committed to improving the health and wellbeing of the population of Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West.
[1] Chapman, T. & Wistow, J. (forthcoming 2023), Local health and social wellbeing: the contribution of the VCSE sector in BOB
[2] NHS Constitution: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-nhs-constitution-for-england/the-nhs-constitution-for-england
