July and August 2024

We visited Brierley Hill Methodist Church in Dudley, the venue for our next Dudley People Panel being held on Monday 16 September. The Church was holding a community BBQ, which gave us a good opportunity to promote, meet the local community, and build relationships ahead of the panel. 

During our networking, we heard the church’s concerns over losing numbers of service attendees and members, and how they would like to reach the wider community and potential volunteers for the maintenance and running of the church. They see the church as a place that can bring people together, reduce isolation and improve health and wellbeing. 

We spoke to a number of the attendees about what the church means to them and about their recent experiences with local healthcare services.  

One attendee shared that, since the COVID-19 pandemic, all she does is get up and attend work. She said that more needs to be done to bring communities together, and that churches are a good space for this. The minister of the church added that they would like to welcome more community groups to use or hire their facilities, as it will help open the local community up to more activities. 

When talking about healthcare services, one attendee mentioned the NHS App, saying that she finds it very useful, especially when utilising the patient access functionality. She said it’s good to be able to keep track of what’s been recorded, and her daughter supports her digitally if she’s struggling when using it. We also received some insight into GP services, with another attendee sharing that he would avoid ringing his GP practice or using their online services as he felt he wouldn’t get an appointment.  

The minister has signposted us to the Brierley Hill Project, a project that works to support young people, as they utilise one of the church’s buildings and would be good to have participate at our upcoming panel. The findings from this conversation were shared with the People Panel planning group. 

We first started networking with the Macular Society to look at how we could work together to improve the health and wellbeing of people with macular conditions in the Black Country. Macular conditions are conditions that can impact sight, affecting the macula at the back of the eye.  

Following a positive community conversation with the Wolverhampton Macular Society at the Beacon Centre in Sedgley, we decided to meet the Dudley Macular Society, along with a colleague from our Digital First team, to talk about the experiences of people with macular conditions in Dudley. 

The Dudley Macular Society Support Group is part of a national network of support groups for people with macular degeneration. The groups are run by volunteers and supported by a regional officer from the Macular Society. The group meets monthly, and each month the group has a guest speaker. Each attendee contributes a couple of pounds towards the room hire and refreshments, and they use the group as a safe space to talk to other people with similar conditions, and to share advice, ideas and experiences of living with sight loss. There is a real sense of community within the group, and the attendees even have a WhatsApp group to communicate with members who may not be able to attend.  

A lot of the attendees shared their experiences of the challenges they face when booking appointments and accessing services online or over the phone. All of the attendees said that they don’t utilise the NHS App and that they need additional help and support to set it up and use it effectively. 

There was a lot of conversation around transport, with one attendee sharing her struggles attending the group, explaining that she relies on the Ring and Ride transport service. When they don’t have capacity, she has to rely on friends and family for support. Another attendee shared that she feels isolated due to the distance from her family, so this group acts as an extra support mechanism for her. She said she is open to travelling to other areas for support, as she likes the Beacon Centre in Wolverhampton, but the ongoing work at Dudley Bus Station as impacted her bus routes, causing uncertainty about travelling. 

The group spoke positively about the rehabilitation workers from Queens Cross Network Adult Social Care at Dudley Council, who also attend the monthly meetings. They shared that they receive a lot of support from them, and that they have helped them to live healthier, happier and safer lives.     

We have shared the feedback from this visit with the ICB’s digital inequalities lead and Dudley’s Digital First team to help improve primary care digital access for people with macular conditions. Following the feedback on the NHS App, we are working with our digital colleagues, the Macular Society and the Beacon Centre to look at coordinating an NHS ‘tech day’ later in the year to help provide technical support to those who need it.   

LGBT Sparkle is a friendship and social group for adults based in Wolverhampton. Their mission is to raise awareness and tackle issues faced by the LGBT+ community, and the group is open to anyone who would like to socialise and meet new people in a safe place. 

While gathering insights for our dementia strategy refresh, we spoke to one of the founders of LGBT Sparkle as he shared his experience of being the main carer for his nan. With the ICS dementia strategy now written, we reconnected with him to discuss the strategy, the impact of his feedback and to do some filming for one of our Feet on the Street features. 

He gave us an update on some of the struggles he is facing while caring for his nan, who lives independently. She has been leaving the windows on her ground floor apartment open overnight, which he believes is a safety concern. He asked the housing association about installing some window restrictors, but was told that they were against fire regulations. He thinks this policy should be reconsidered as it is not personalised to his nan’s needs and capabilities if there was a fire. He has organised for a police community support officer to visit his nan to see what can be done regarding the crime risk. 

He also shared his thoughts on giving someone power of attorney, as he is an advocate for having a power of attorney in place as soon as possible after receiving a dementia diagnosis. He thinks GPs and health professionals should provide more information on it due to how difficult it can be to get in place later down the line. As they left it too late to get it in place for his nan, he is now trying to raise funds for a solicitor.  

He was grateful that his views and experiences were considered for the ICS dementia strategy, and we have fed his insights and views from this conversation back into it. 

SUIT is a community interest company (CIC) organisation that supports people with drug and alcohol addictions. We have been working closely with SUIT on the health inequalities forum, which has a focus on homelessness. As part of the forum, we supported a gentleman who works at SUIT to share his story of homelessness, addiction, crime and the experiences he has had of services from across the Black Country ICS. 

He spoke very openly and honestly about his heroin addiction, explaining that he was an addict for over 20 years after leaving the army and becoming homeless. He said he didn’t know how to overcome his addiction or where to go for support, and that, while he was in and out of social or supported housing, he would repeatedly end up living on the street. He tried to fund his addiction by committing theft, which ultimately lead to prison and consequences that impacted part-time jobs and housing arrangements. He was very reflective on this time of his life, saying that he now volunteers full-time to support other people and to turn his past experiences into something positive. 

He has been clean for nearly two years and has been taking medication during this time to curb the heroin addiction. He will be spending two weeks in a rehabilitation centre at the end of his two years to be taken off the medication completely. 

While walking through Wolverhampton, he was approached three times by people experiencing homelessness who knew him and who SUIT were currently supporting. He said that people depend on SUIT for signposting as they are a trusted voice. He suggested that we and the local council should work more closely with SUIT to help make us more approachable and accessible to people who are homeless.   

Following this conversation, we have arranged a meeting with SUIT, the CEO of the Good Shepherd and the Black Country ICB’s head of transformation to explore how we will work together in future. The Good Shepherd expressed that they would like to create a video, and we are looking at the possibility of this being funded as a Feet on the Street feature for the next health inequalities forum on homelessness.