HEALTHY NORWICH
Tuesday began with a Healthy Norwich Fair in the Forum, centred around the launch of WalkNorwich - part of the Healthy Norwich initiative with the City Council and Public Health. For 'Beat The Streets' part of the City has been turned into a giant walking game, with residents walking between card readers fixed to lampposts and other street furniture, and clocking up their own and the total mileage for their team. In only four school days Heartsease Primary School already has 5390 points (539 card reader swipes).The health summary at the launch from Dr William Bird was quite powerful - inactivity is the 4th leading cause worldwide of premature death, and is a more significant risk factor than smoking or hypertension; but also that regular exercise has a big positive impact on hidden visceral fat, even without any overall weight loss. Norwich is a beautiful city, but cities can be traffic choked obesogenic public health disasters, and it's important that the CCG continues to think beyond just A&E targets and annual budgets, and works in partnership to make it healthy as well as picturesque.
Full details of the walking schemes are on the CCG and the Norwich City Council Website.
PATIENT OPINION
Straight from the Forum back to City Hall for 10am for the Norwich Patient Opinion Workshop. We've been promoting its use through our hospital contract since last April, and it was an important development to have the PO team come to Norwich and talk to other providers and commissioners across the County.Patient stories about their experience of care - good or bad - can be powerful drivers of reflective practice and service improvement. Since launch last year Patient Opinion has delivered to the Norwich Health system over 200 patient stories. Most get a response from the provider; many lead to change which is then shared on the website.
The patient voice - if heard - is the most important quality assurance and improvement tool the NHS can access. We're still learning how to take full advantage of it, and still persuading some to take the plunge, but a health service that listens to patients is a safe service and an improving service, and I am determined to grow the number of providers registered with the service, and the number of patients using it.
And finally, the PO team brought cake. They didn't buy cake, they made cake - rock buns and welsh cakes baked just for us. And I'm hoping they come back very soon (James - flapjacks next time? Or chocolate brownies a little gooey still in the middle...)
NELSON'S JOURNEY AGM
If you want to break the resolve of a grizzled old commissioner with a heart of flint and a fist clenched tightly around the public purse, take them to some charity AGMs. Nelson's Journey is a Norfolk charity that supports children suffering a family bereavement - workshops, counselling, and weekends away for group therapy. It survives - and is thriving - on donations and legacies, but receives little from the statutory sector despite most of its referrals coming from education and health. We've been able to help this year as part of our commitment to grow voluntary sector investment in line with our key community themes: older people, carers, mental health, and end of life and bereavement.I had expected the AGM to be worthy but a little dry - a few spreadsheets, a review of the year, and heartfelt thank you's to patrons and volunteers. It had all that, but it also had two young people talking about the loss they had suffered and the difference Nelson's Journey had made. They were incredibly brave to talk to a room mostly full of strangers about how they had felt after losing a mother and a sister, and how the charity had helped them and brought them together with children their own age who had experienced similar loss. They looked about ready for GCSEs, and it really brought home how much a bereavement - if not properly supported - could impact on education, employment, mental health, and life chances of young people.
I just about escaped dry eyed, but was caught out at the end by them giving everyone a plant pot, inviting us to write down someone we remember, and then (if we remember to water it) think of them as we watch it grow. It's one of the ceremonies they use as part of the therapy process, and few of the attendees escaped unmoved. This one's mine, and the name tucked in the back is Kathryn Laura.
BLOGGING ANNIVERSARY
I published my first blog on 18th May 2013. It was short and a little dull, but fortunately almost nobody read it. I've managed 41 posts and had almost 30,000 blog hits since then, and although sometimes I wake on a Saturday morning and wish I'd never started doing it, overall it's been a great experience. It has helped me to reflect on my responsibilities, and think more about how I spend my time; I've met new people and had a lot of very helpful feedback through Twitter; and it has created opportunities for me to engage with local people, health professionals, and colleagues across the country.I've never been trolled, but people have on occasion violently disagreed with what I've written. Last week's epistle on money and workforce got an angry response from a local trade union office, and some tweets suggesting that I should be fighting for more NHS resources rather than talking about efficiency savings. I understand the argument but I don't agree - I'm an unelected public servant with a duty to do the best I can for Norwich with the resources we're given; whatever my private views, I don't have the right to use my position to take a political stance on issues.
This time last year I watched the Canaries beat West Brom to secure another year in the Premiership; this week I got to the top of the season ticket waiting list just in time for relegation. I hope I'm still blogging another year from now, that I'm be cheering on the terraces of Carrow Road as we bounce straight back, and that I'm still doing this job in this great City.