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Working in Partnership
Plymouth Hospitals Charity believes passionately in the power of partnerships. We are proud to be a strategic partner of University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust and understand that by working closely with our partners in the NHS, NHS charities and local organisations we can significantly enhance support for patients and NHS staff across Devon.
In 2020-2023 we were proud to be the lead charity for Devon for the NHS Charities Together (NHS CT) Stage 2 Community Partnership Grants Programme.
NHS Charities Together is the national, independent NHS charity caring for the NHS, and represents all NHS charities associated with hospitals, mental health, ambulance and community health services across the UK.
Working closely with our local NHS Charity partners, we identified eight local delivery partners and, in July 2021, we were informed that our application to NHS Charities Together had been successful. Plymouth Hospitals Charity was awarded £534,639 to support projects that provide vital hep to patients, staff and volunteers on the frontline at the most critical of times.
Over the two-year grant period, we worked with our partners to deliver eight fantastic projects. You can read about them below.
The funding has now ended, but we are delighted that many projects are continuing.
BASICS Devon
Volunteer medics help save lives in communities across rural Devon and can be on site within minutes, day or night. Responding to incidents at the request of the South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust, they provide an additional tier of medical support supplementing the excellent service provided by local ambulance crews.
The grant has enabled the expansion of the BASICS Devon voluntary services by funding the training and equipment for three additional volunteer immediate care doctors in Plymouth and Western Devon.
Step One Charity
BeWell@StepOne is an integrated care model using online support pathways to increase capacity for providing and receiving mental health support.
With this grant BeWell@StepOne has provided early intervention to Devon patients experiencing mental health issues.
Torbay Community Development Trust
The Torbay Community Helpline provides a wide range of support delivered by citizens, staff and volunteers across a range of partner VCSE and faith groups, providing shopping, prescriptions, befriending, finance and benefits advice, housing support, mental health support, children and family support, links into social care and health, including a hospital discharge home support service.
The grant has funded a Volunteer Coordinator post to recruit, train and support the team of volunteer call handlers.
Devon Community Foundation
Wellbeing Exeter - Community Connecting for Black, Minority Ethnic and Refugee (BMER) communities. This project builds on an existing partnership of voluntary and community sector organisations working together to provide the firm foundations for individuals and communities in the city to improve their health and wellbeing, reducing pressure on health and social care services now and in the future.
This grant has enabled the expansion of the current Wellbeing Exeter partnership to develop and increase the support available from the programme to people from culturally diverse communities in Exeter.
Living Options Devon
The Options for Living Project aimed to reduce health inequalities and pressure on the NHS.
The grant has been used to train a team of Community Vaccine Champions to increase Devon's COVID Vaccination uptake and to fund Discharge Planning Coordinators linked closely with the Waiting Well project at Living Options Devon that supports patients on the waiting list, thereby enabling patients anticipating hospital admission to choose hospital discharge support from the Home from hospital team.
Rowcroft Hospice
Of the 81% of people who wish to die in the comfort of their own home, only 24% achieve this in Devon. The Hospice at Home service helps patients fulfil this goal.
This grant increased capacity within the service. Enabling more patients to access to Hospice at Home.
Healthwatch Torbay & Engaging Communities South West
The Digital Health Devon project offers free online training about how to access local health, social care and wellbeing services using the internet.
This funding has helped tackle health inequalities by enabling Digital Health Devon to deliver free guidance online and in healthcare and community settings, showing people how they can use the internet to access resources such as online consultation services and prescription-ordering systems.
One Northern Devon
Home from Hospital and Beyond was a new project that aimed to address factors that impact people’s health and likelihood of admission to hospital such as loneliness, cold homes, debt issues and other issues that matter to the patient.
The funding enabled One Northern Devon to support hospital patients on their discharge from North Devon District Hospital, as well as patients referred from other health and social care partners to connect them to the non-medical support they need.
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