Personal finance and credit score workshops for health and care staff

Experian, the global information services company, has announced an extension to its partnership with health and care organisations in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire. Together they have created a unique series of face-to-face and online workshops for employees on how to manage their finances amidst continued challenging times.

Working specifically with Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Integrated Care System (ICS), a partnership between the county’s NHS and care organisations to support health and wellbeing, five “Money Clinics” and a number of online webinars will take place over the next two months. These clinics are open to any of the 71,000 staff to attend and will provide insights, support and guidance on personal finances and credit scores.

Expert teams from Experian and Citizens Advice Nottingham will be on hand to answer questions on a range of topics including how to successfully build a credit score, applying for credit, budgeting, managing debt and claiming benefits. In addition, staff have the opportunity to arrange one-on-one sessions to discuss any topics related to improving their financial health.

This Experian programme forms part of a broader support package offered to staff via The East Midlands Hub Winter Wellbeing Support which can be accessed here.

These workshops are an extension to the partnership between Experian and Nottingham and Nottinghamshire ICS. A pilot programme with Nottingham University Hospitals took place last year with over 250 NHS staff attending two “Money Clinics” and five “credit workshops”.

Steve Thomas, Managing Director, Strategy & Innovation, Experian UK&I, said: “Being able to provide face-to-face sessions, and webinars, to NHS and care workers, is part of Experian’s ongoing commitment to improving financial health in the UK. NHS and care workers provide us all with vital support, so it’s great to be able to help them in return.

“We believe that guiding staff on personal finance topics like credit scores, building credit for the first time, or getting help with debt, can help people stay in control of their money. This means they’re more likely to be able to get credit in the future, at times they really need it.”

Philippa Hunt, Chief People Officer at NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, said: “With the current cost of living continuing to affect us all in different ways, we know financial management can cause feelings of stress and anxiety. We are very grateful to Experian for hosting the clinics and we hope as many health and care colleagues as possible engage with the sessions to gain advice and support. Building on previous events, Experian are a valued partner to help with money management and financial wellbeing.”

Simon Mee, General Advice Service Manager from Citizens Advice Nottingham said: “Citizens Advice Nottingham & District provide free, confidential, and impartial advice and campaign on big issues affecting people’s lives. Our goal is to help everyone find a way forward, whatever problem they face.”

Find out more about Experian

Monthly shout-out: Sandra Morrell

Sandra Morrell, Designated Nurse for Safeguarding Children at NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, is the winner of our shout-out this month after she was awarded a ‘Safeguarding Star’ by NHS England. This award acknowledges Sandra’s wide contribution across the Midlands region, especially her work around report writing training.

Joanne Harrison, Assistant Director for Safeguarding NHS England – Midlands, said: “The impact of your leadership supports and inspires colleagues that you connect with in their professional practice. You have been a great support to our regional team in our strategic approach over the years.”

Organisation leaders commit to joint working

The leaders of health, care, local authority, voluntary and community sector organisations have signed up to work together for the benefit of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire people.

A wide range of organisations have signed the ‘Integrated Care System Partnership Agreement’ which pledges a commitment to work together with a shared purpose of ‘every person enjoying their best possible health and wellbeing’.

Dr Kathy McLean, Chair of the Integrated Care Partnership, said: “We know that good health and wellbeing is of immense importance to everyone. We recognise that each person’s health doesn’t begin and end with single   organisations. Health may be affected by many different things, such as the quality of housing, job or training prospects or access to healthy food. This Partnership Agreement signals that organisations are committed to working and planning together across organisational boundaries to make changes which can support individuals to reach the goal of ‘every person enjoying their best possible health and wellbeing’.

“Leaders have also pledged to listen to the experience and aspirations of local people and communities and act on these together. Having this collective commitment will ultimately help to improve the health and wellbeing of our local people.”

The full list of organisations and signatures can be viewed on the Integrated Care System Partnership Agreement.

Dr Kathy McLean elected as incoming Chair of the NHS Confederation’s Integrated Care System Network Board

Dr Kathy McLean has been elected as chair of the NHS Confederation ICS Network from April 2024. The Network supports leaders to exchange ideas, share experiences and challenges and influence the national agenda on key issues such as social care reform and elective recovery.

Dr McLean is also Chair of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Integrated Care Board and University Hospitals Derby and Burton.

Dr McLean said: “I am delighted to have been elected to the role of Chair of the ICS Network. It is a critical time for systems, and it will be important to help health and care leaders work together to share best practice, challenge each other and influence the national agenda.

I’m looking forward to taking on this exciting new role and driving forward the integration agenda.”

Find out more: https://www.nhsconfed.org/news/new-chair-ics-network-announced

Insights into our local communities

A new Insight Report has been published which brings together intelligence gathered from listening to our communities across the Integrated Care System.

The report, which was presented to the Integrated Care Partnership in October, provides a summary of the activities and findings from engagement work across the system. This includes engagement work to develop the Integrated Care Strategy, insights from our Partners Assemblies and the business-as-usual engagement carried out by all system partners.

The report will support the work of the Integrated Care Strategy to help meet the needs of our communities.

Some of the insights include:

• The population of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire in 2021 is larger, older, less likely to be in a legal relationship and less white than 10 years ago.

• Our population generally support a shift to prevention and an approach centred in equity – but for both of these changes they are sceptical about how this can be achieved while protecting existing services.

• Improving support for older individuals includes collaborating across agencies, enhancing access to various services, reducing isolation and addressing transportation issues, while improving digital literacy and innovation in dementia care.

• For children young people and families, there needs to be more support provided around breastfeeding together with services being more co-ordinated and promoted to understand what people can access and when. Additionally, there should be more support for children with special educational needs and disabilities.

• The experiences of racial minority groups, especially within Nottingham City, in accessing health and care services is multi-faceted and complex and requires dedicated attention to improve.

The report makes a number of recommendations which will now be considered by the Integrated Care Strategy Steering Group. The report will also feed into the development of an Evaluation Framework that will help us measure the impact of our Strategy.

Read the Insights Report

Monthly shout-out – to the Mental Health Support Team

Well done to the Mental Health Support Team (MHST) who have won this month’s ‘shout out’ for their excellent partnership work.

The MHST have worked with young people to co-produce peer mentoring services for schools. These are equipping young people to support each other and promoting an honest culture around mental health to help keep children well.

Young people have been asked to apply to become mentors before being interviewed and trained. They are then appointed a mentee to support via group supervision. The staff team really enjoy delivering this training and it has been really well received by the young people and parents the team has worked with.

The young people who have been supported have fed back that they are ‘more confident’, ‘more patient’ and have learned ‘how to calm down in certain situations’. They also reflected that they have learned to ‘speak to others when you’re in need of help’ and to ‘talk about feelings more’.

The young mentors have also gained ‘communication skills’ and ‘confidence and empathy’.

As well as the peer-to-peer mentoring, the MHST provides one to one and group workshops for young people and also delivers training and advice to school and college staff.

Find out more about the Mental Health Support Team.