HEAR and its members have been working with a number of different stakeholders, including our colleagues at the GLA, to contribute to work on London’s recovery from Covid 19
HEAR has a wealth of knowledge and lied experience amongst its membership, so we can speak from the grass roots about the impact on Londoners and what is needed going forward to ensure responses really are focused on the priorities of those most adversely affected
Part of our contribution has been to take part in the Community Conversations exercise, to help shape the ‘missions’ guiding London’s response
We will be sharing much more about the missions and recovery work soon but we wanted to let you know what was said in the Community Conversations
HEAR held a Conversation together with Superhighways, focused on digital inclusion as part of the recovery work, and you can read what was submitted from this conversation here:
Digital across GLA recovery missions submission
and here
Community Conversation feedback on digital
HEAR and its members also contributed to a submission on issues impacting on older Londoners across the different missions, and you can read that here:
London Age Friendly Forum Response to the draft Missions
We also submitted a response gathering up all the other issues raised by members, which included:
-Volunteering in the community is crucial but volunteers need better more structured support
-Concerns about access to primary health care through virtual means, this is not appropriate for many, concern that this will become ‘by default’
-There needs to be more joined up working at a local level between voluntary and community groups and statutory agencies across all sectors, and business, to build resilience at a local level through partnership
-Transcultural models of health and well-being, not just westernised medical models, are important
-Trust building is vital, especially between the community and the health and social care system
-Community involvement needs to be real and genuine and not ‘tickbox’ or hampered by bureaucracy; poor engagement processes do more harm than good
-Focus on smoking and obesity in health is too narrow, wider determinents of health such as poor housing, lack of access to green space, accessible and affordable means of exercise, air pollution are all vital
-Intergenerational focus is vital
-More trust needs to be built to give people confidence to use public transport in London, e.g. wearing of masks is not being widely adhered to or enforced
-Collection of data on all aspects, both quantitative and quantitative, needs to be more robust and transparent
Thank you to everyone who took part, we already know from feedback from our colleagues at the GLA that the contributions from civil society organisations have had a substantive influence on how the missions are being shaped and developed. Look out for much more on HEAR and its members’ contributions to London’s recovery and how you can take part coming soon…..