How a Community Network Action is helping to tackle challenges faced by people living in the West End of Morecambe

Yak Patel, Chief Officer of Lancaster District Community and Voluntary Solutions (CVS), and Dr Andy Maddox, GP and Primary Care Network Clinical Director, shared their experiences of setting up a Community Action Network (CAN) in the West End of Morecambe. The CAN involves a range of people working together to make a difference to the health and wellbeing of people living in the area. Those involved in the CAN to date are Lancaster CVS, Bay Primary Care Network (PCN), More Music, Stanley’s Community Centre, West End Morecambe Big Local, The Well Communities, West End Impact, Home-Start UK, Bay Medical Group and Bay Integrated Care Community.

The CAN was set up in 2019 and aims to look at how it can make the best use of the assets in the local area to reduce health inequalities, in particular, the focus has been on looking at how to support health and wellbeing from the ground up and provide support for people who really need it but who are not always ‘seen’. The CAN uses a Population Health approach meaning that the focus is on all determinants of health, not just healthcare.

Yak Patel and Dr Maddox also shared their experience of being invited to attend a series of the ‘Art of Hosting’ training events in 2017 which inspired them to form the CAN and its current approach. The ‘Art of Hosting’ is an approach to leadership based on ‘personal practice, dialogue, facilitation and the co-creation of innovation to address complex challenges’.

Yak Patel and Dr Maddox shared their journey at a webinar hosted by the Institute of Voluntary Action Research (IVAR) in July. The webinar was attended by colleagues from across the Voluntary, Community, Faith and Social Enterprise Sector, Integrated Care System in England, Primary Care Networks, GPs and Primary Care Colleagues and place-based leaders. You can read IVAR’s case study ‘A Community Action Network – West End, Morecambe Bay, at IVAR’s website here A Community Action Network – West End, Morecambe Bay | IVAR