Blog | Middlesbrough Voluntary Development Agency

UK Shared Prosperity Fund

25 April 2022 - 9:45am

We have have had a number of enquiries about the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, so we thought it might be helpful to blog what we have learnt about this fund so far.

Main points:

Minority communities, people with learning disabilities and Annual Health Checks – a role for the VCS?

16 March 2022 - 1:32pm

The uptake of Annual Health Checks (AHCs) by people with learning disabilities is low in all parts of the Country. It appears to me the NHS needs all the help it can get to ensure numbers increase in general and, in particular, for those from minority groups. However, in a meeting we were invited to of health practitioners in the Midlands area there appeared to be the same old, same old in terms of who is being involved, what is being funded and lack of understanding about the VCS.

Minority communities, people with learning disabilities and Annual Health Checks – what next?

3 November 2021 - 1:52pm

If you’ve been following my series of blogs about this project you'll know I was getting excited about a forthcoming ‘Roundtable’ meeting which I had organised for commissioning staff and community groups and leaders, to come together to discuss and agree what needs to happen over the next few months.

The desktop research report which I wrote initially was considered as a good starting point, but the consensus was that action needed to be guided at a local level. Those around the table agreed with the themes I had outlined:

People with learning disabilities are either hidden or visible - my lessons learnt so far

14 October 2021 - 9:55am

I'm getting some useful insights into engaging communities who are sometimes ignored as I reach the halfway point in my piece of work to identify the barriers which those with learning disabilities from minority communities face in accessing Annual Health Checks (AHCs) at their GP surgery.

You can read the background to this piece of work MVDA has been commissioned to do on behalf of NHS England here: Changing the poor take-up of annual health checks by minority communities

Back to the Future for social prescribing

21 March 2019 - 1:02pm

I feel a bit like Marty McFly having just stepped out of Doc's DeLorean and being transported back to 2014. Scotland voted to stay a member of the United Kingdom in an independent referendum, Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi won the Nobel Peace Prize, Friends celebrated its 20th anniversary making me feel very old, Conchita Wurst won Eurovision, Ed Sheeran and ‘thinking out loud’ makes number one twice and we were watching ‘The Theory of Everything’ and ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ at the cinema.