9th August 2024
Hubs and Pop-Up Events: Coming together, sharing, questioning, and learning
You might have noticed that Health ‘Hubs’ and pop-up style events have been taking place in Lincolnshire. These sessions relocate non-medical opportunities from traditional NHS settings into community spaces.
An excellent example of this is The Bridge Community Venue in Lincoln, whose doors are open almost daily for people to find a safe space and someone to talk to. The Bridge team also offers activities and signposting into groups, with some venue visitors becoming volunteers and giving back to their community.
The Grantham Joint Aches and Pains Hub, and the Boston Preventing Falls Event (watch the short video below) have provided cohorts of people with information about services that may support them, alongside wellbeing checks. These events took place in leisure centres, with hundreds of visitors receiving advice and guidance to support their long-term health conditions.
“We wanted to create a one-stop-shop to bring together all of the services that someone might need to help prevent falls.” - Stacey Passant, Project Manager for Boston Preventing Falls Event.
Sharing and using learning
With all of this great work going on, the It’s All About People team was keen to bring health and care practitioners together to explore the effectiveness of these non-traditional approaches and share learning. In a session hosted by Every-One, we generated 150 ‘Learning Questions’ that highlighted the gaps in our understanding, which were then themed. Answers to these questions then started to appear from our subsequent conversations.
"I really enjoyed that session. It gave us a chance to think about what we need to consider, especially when planning events." - Kate Robinson, Project Manager - PCN Transformation & Integrated Communities, Lincolnshire ICB
We’ll use the learning from this exercise to inform future toolkits and guides. We know there’s an appetite to provide one-stop-shop services - and evidence suggests that when done well, these events have huge benefits to the public and health and care practitioners alike. For example, we heard from health and care professionals how refreshing they found it to engage with the public and deliver their practice differently.
For more information on pop-up events, hubs or the Learning Questions approach, contact Matthew.Evans34@nhs.net
