Prevention and early help
We tend to worry about health and healthcare when we get ill or our health begins to suffer. There are many benefits for people who have the tools and support to live and stay well: increased self-esteem, feeling able to take control, feeling connected and less isolated, reduced anxiety, and improvement in mood. People also feel empowered to challenge and question health professionals, being recognised as experts in their condition, and have the ability to provide peer support.
You’ve told us that you value having meaning and purpose in your day. You want to be involved in conversations about your health and wellbeing. When people can manage their own health and our communities are supported to build groups and networks, we can link people together and help each other to stay well.
In Dorset we want to improve emotional health and wellbeing support for children and young people. To do this we have to make sure young people have the right support at the right time and in the right place, and that they are actively involved in decisions about their care.
Roughly half of all lifetime mental health disorders start by the mid-teens and three quarters by mid-20s. Introducing support at an earlier stage, even before a diagnosis, can help children, young people and their families feel more looked after and can prevent some conditions from worsening.
As children grow and develop, they may need different kinds of support. For this to work, we as an integrated care system need to listen to the needs of local children, young people and their families and invest resources to reflect this. This means looking at how well our services work to support people.
Waiting times for accessing children and young person’s health services in Dorset are higher than many other areas in the South West. One in 20 people referred are offered an appointment within four weeks – much lower than the target of 95%.
Not getting help quickly can make some behaviours, like self-harm, worse. This lack of early support not only costs children and young people, but it has a knock-on effect for services, with extra emergency department visits, police and ambulance time, inappropriate stays in hospital, and social work and care coordinator time.
Safeguarding families
Post pandemic, many local authorities have seen a rise in child protection cases. A new approach to social work will mean we have the right support for families to enable and affect positive change.
Safeguarding Families Together brings specialist adult services workers alongside children’s social workers, with an approach to keeping children safe in the family home. It is based on ‘whole family working’ to meet both the child and adult needs by working together and sharing information between professionals to provide the right support at the right time.
Children with social workers or who have experienced care can face a range of challenging social and health outcomes, including poorer educational results, higher rates of mental health problems and even higher rates of homelessness and unemployment later in life. In Dorset children aged 0-4 years continue to represent the highest number of new child protection cases.
Safeguarding families
Post pandemic, many local authorities have seen a rise in child protection cases. A new approach to social work will mean we have the right support for families to enable and affect positive change.
Safeguarding Families Together brings specialist adult services workers alongside children’s social workers, with an approach to keeping children safe in the family home. It is based on ‘whole family working’ to meet both the child and adult needs by working together and sharing information between professionals to provide the right support at the right time.
Children with social workers or who have experienced care can face a range of challenging social and health outcomes, including poorer educational results, higher rates of mental health problems and even higher rates of homelessness and unemployment later in life. In Dorset children aged 0-4 years continue to represent the highest number of new child protection cases.
In Dorset many people are living with long-term conditions. These include high blood pressure, heart disease or diabetes. There is also wide variation in the number of people who have these conditions under control.
‘Under control’ means managing the risk factors that could lead to the need for hospital care, or even early death. Information on how many people have good control is available from each GP practice.
We can use this information to understand how to improve care. But it is vital we work with people to understand how we can best support them to make the changes that will help.
This could be clinical care, such as prescribing medicines that can help risk factors. Supporting people to make changes to their lifestyle and stay well is also important. For people living with high blood pressure or type 2 diabetes it is possible to reduce your risk factors. This could be by being more active or changing what you eat. Quitting smoking or drinking less alcohol can also help. People are more likely to make these changes if they feel supported and engaged in their care.
Our vision of an integrated care system goes beyond professional, clinical roles. It looks at how we better support people, and the importance of having a strong network of social support. This can help motivate people to stay well and improve their lifestyles. To achieve this we must understand what matters to you to keep you well. We should also consider how best to provide more social support, and see this as part of our offer to people. Using our data and insight is also important. We will measure how well we are doing. Do more people feel better supported in managing their condition? And is the variation in people who have good control of their condition reducing?
Going forward:
1 year
3 to 5 years
5+ years
Going forward:
