Christmas opening times of a selection of Camden organisations and services: Pharmacies Community Centres Camden Council (rubbish, leisure centres and libraries) GP appointments In addition to booking an appointment at your GP surgery over the holiday period, you can book an evening or weekend appointment at one of Camden’s four GP […]
News and Feature Articles
This is VAC's blog page. On here you can find a list of interesting articles which were written for our weekly newsletter. All articles have been categorised so if you are looking for an article on a particular subject then use the blog category filters opposite to filter your results. If you have any interesting ideas for the blog, or wish to contribute then just get in touch.
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
Introduction The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will increase privacy for individuals and give regulatory authorities greater powers. VAC has produced a series of briefings, starting with an introduction and leading to practical guidance for local organisations and has run a series of workshops in Feb/March 2018. Data protection law will change from 25 […]
A guide to social prescribing | The social determinants of health
Making sense of social prescribing Produced by the Social Prescribing Network at the University of Westminster, this is a new document which covers various aspects including – What is social prescribing; why do social prescribing; what do different models look like; what makes a good link worker; what makes a good referral; governance and risk […]
Health Inequalities – a round-up of recent news
The English health inequalities strategy (1997 – 2010) turns out to have been an extraordinary success A landmark report into the English health inequalities strategy–a cross government strategy implemented between 1997 and 2010 to reduce health inequalities in England. This was one of the most ambitious strategies of its kind ever undertaken and aimed to […]
Social Prescribing Update: Why do vulnerable people need statutory services to help them access their own community?
An interesting article on community and social care from Mark Gamsu who concludes his article with this point: “It is very important that statutory organisations such as big NHS providers, Clinical Commissioning Groups and those professionals funded by the state like GPs understand that it is not good enough to just design pathways that reconnect […]
Social Prescribing – Overview and Challenges
Social prescribing is not a new idea – it is a means of enabling primary care services to refer patients with social, emotional or practical needs to a range of local, non-clinical services, often provided by the voluntary and community sector. It is most commonly used with patients with a mental health or long-term condition. […]
Election time: Campaigning with Confidence – Dos and Don’ts
The National Council for Voluntary Organisations has urged the sector to campaign with confidence. There has been much scare mongering over the Lobbying Act but most of the provisions only apply to organisations “where the expenditure can reasonably be regarded as intended to influence the electoral prospects of parties or candidates.” Few voluntary organisations in […]
Early Intervention and Social Prescribing
There is a great deal of interest currently in the role of the vcs and civil society in Health and Social Care. There are a number of reasons, an ageing and unhealthy population costs more and is unhappier. And as the balance shifts from a young working population to an older, less healthy population public […]
The Way Ahead Story
The Beginning About a year ago an inquiry into infrastructure in London was started in response to a decision by London Funders to stop funding pan-london infrastructure in April 2017 – i.e. end funding to London-wide voluntary sector support bodies such as London Voluntary Service Council, London Advice Services Alliance etc. London Funders simultaneously took […]
Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives
Camden’s Health and Wellbeing Board convened an interesting meeting recently to look at tackling obesity and low levels of physical activity among residents in the borough. We started with presentations (pp 10, 11) on the situation in the borough (a surprising number of the over 65s and primary school age children are overweight). We then […]
