South West London Investment Fund

The South West London Investment Fund has been established to support the delivery of ICS strategic priorities. We are giving partners the opportunity to apply for funding for innovative projects and health inequality initiatives to improve the health and wellbeing of local people, capturing community energy and enthusiasm for real health benefits.

This year we have two parts to the Investment Fund which are both non-recurrent for the financial year 2022/23:

The Innovation Fund

A total of £4.9 million was made available to local organisations to bid for.

We have awarded funding to 25 projects from the 170 applications we received. The review panel prioritised bids which focussed on winter resilience which they felt could have a significant impact in winter 2022 and 2023. Many of the bids were exceptional and highly innovative, and we are now looking at further proof of concept schemes with a view to awarding further funding to other projects in early 2023.

Projects that were awarded funding from the Innovation Fund include:

We will publish more information about each of the winning Innovation Fund bids in January 2023.

Help is at Hand

The Help is at Hand scheme was awarded £11,000. This voluntary sector scheme aims to create an easily accessed, preventative crisis service to parents, carers, guardians, foster carers and adoptive parents living in Croydon. Funding will enable Help is at Hand to recruit a skilled parent and carer support worker who will provide immediate winter crisis support and advice in person, over tge phone and online, reducing GP and Emergency Department contacts.

Supporting High Intensity Use (HIU) in Merton and Wandsworth

This scheme, which will implement a dedicated High Intensity Use (HIU) service hosted by our VCSE partners Merton Connected and Wandsworth Enable, was awarded £42,000. The project will see two HIU leads will help to reduce unnecessary primary care appointments and reduce the risk of issues escalating by identifying, supporting, and signposting to more appropriate services. The service will offer a one-on-one, patient centred approach enabling HIU patients to manage their own needs, and will see a community of HIU champions who to advocate for patients, working together to improve patient experience and support better integration into the community and with community services.

The scheme will focus on ‘what matters to you’ supports with managing stress, loneliness, finding social groups, learning new skills, physical activity or getting information on employment, benefits, housing, food banks and legal and financial advice.

South West London Aging Well Intensive Behavioural Support Service

This scheme was awarded £286,000 to create an overarching South West London Aging Well Intensive Behavioural Support Service which will provide a range of behaviour support services to people in Croydon, Kingston, Merton, Richmond, Sutton and Wandsworth. This pilot will commission behavioural support for potential residents without a care home placement and provide support to transition into the new care home placement.  The project will also create a new pathway to reduce placement breakdowns, delayed discharges, provide behavioural support and additional training to 70 Care Homes.

The Health Inequalities Fund

Our Health Inequalities allocation from NHS England was a total of £4.3 million.  We are investing £1.6 million of this into system-wide health inequalities programmes, and £2.7 million was made available to boroughs/places for local projects and programmes. The approach we used is evidence and needs based.

We received 80 expressions of interest, and in total, 55 health inequalities projects and programmes for local and system-wide delivery will commence as soon as possible.

Funding for the approved schemes will be released imminently. There will be regular reporting and assurance arrangements to monitor progress and impact on our local population.

Examples of projects and programmes that were awarded funding from the Health Inequalities Fund include:

We will publish more information about each of the winning Health Inequalities Fund bids in January 2023.

Children and Young People Tier 3 weight management service – Croydon

London Borough of Croydon on behalf of a wider partnership has been awarded £293,000. Tier 3 weight management service for children and young people (ages 4 to 18 and 25 for Special Educational Needs and Disabilities), targeted to those with higher rates and risk of obesity, and the development of obesity related long term conditions. This includes children and young people from deprived areas (Core20 population), black ethnic groups, learning disabilities and autism.

Social prescribing pilot for people with a learning disability – Merton

Morden Primary Care Network has been awarded £15,300 for a pilotto roll out social prescribing for people with learning disability, creating connections between the Primary Care Network and the learning disabilities community sector.

Project summary: Pilot to roll out social prescribing for people with learning disability, creating connections between the Primary Care Network and the learning disabilities community sector.

Community Food Impact Project – Wandsworth

Be Enriched has been awarded £40,000. Their project will collect data from service users, distribute healthy start vouchers to canteen guests, conduct focus groups and hear from community members regarding healthy food consumption affected by cost and access.

Project summary: To collect data from service users, distribute healthy start vouchers to canteen guests, conduct focus groups and hear from community members regarding healthy food consumption affected by cost and access.