COMMUNITIES, RIGHTS AND INCLUSION - CORIIN

The vision for CORIIN
Workforce development
Third sector and social enterprise
Performance monitoring and management
Delivering Race Equaltiy (DRE)

The Communities, Rights and Inclusion programme (CORIIN) is being developed with Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust as a key mechanism by which the Trust will deliver its vision for 2012:

“Advancing wellbeing through the development of communities, rights and inclusion”

Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust (LPT) is one of the largest mental health and learning disability Trusts in the country serving a population of 1 million people across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland counties. In addition the Trust has a number of specialist services that take referrals from across the East Midlands region and beyond.  The Trust is also applying for Foundation Trust status in 2009 and CORIIN is taking the lead on the development of the membership for this on the basis of using the membership to advance social inclusion.

CORIIN started in October 2008 with the appointment of Dr Jon Bashford from ISCRI as an Associate Director in the Trust responsible for CORIIN.  Reporting directly to the trust Board the CORIIN programme seeks to ensure that:

• engagement with local communities
• the protection of human rights; and
• the promotion of inclusion

is at the heart of the Trust’s strategic development. CORIIN will ensure the Trust is a lead organisation in this area and sets the benchmark for other Trusts and their partners in going beyond the legislative and policy objectives.

CORIIN will enable the development of new models of practice for advancing wellbeing and inclusion that have a robust research base, are supported through learning and teaching and founded upon community engagement principles.  One of the core objectives is to share learning from the CORIIN programme to other providers and commissioners for example to support the development of mental health and learning disability commissioning programmes that specifically engage communities and support inclusion.

The establishment of ISCRI created the opportunity to develop a unique collaboration based on the principles of the School for Communities, Rights and Inclusion.  Mental health and learning disabilities is an area that has significant needs and challenges and the thinking behind CORIIN was to establish an organisational change programme from within rather than as a research or consultancy project.  We were keen to work with Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust as it is an organisation that shares ISCRI’s commitment to community engagement and to the promotion of all forms of equality and human rights.  The Chief Executive Officer of LPT, Professor Antony Sheehan and the Board expressed their enthusiasm to work in partnership with ISCRI and to make CORIIN a flagship programme in the Trust.

The Vision for CORIIN is that it will enable LPT to:

1. be held by local communities in high regard as an organisation that understands their mental health and learning disability needs and works with them as an equal partner in ensuring they have access to the right services to meet those needs;

2. make the protection and promotion of civil, legal and human rights and equality part of its everyday practice as an employer and service provider;

3. provide services that will actively promote and support the inclusion of those with mental health problems and learning disabilities as active citizens who are able to participate fully in the life of the local community; and

4. become a Foundation Trust that is responsive to local emerging needs by having a diverse membership that is reflective of the local population and feels empowered to make an active contribution to strategy and planning processes for the design and delivery of services.

CORIIN brings together the high level academic expertise of ISCRI and experience of developing organisational change programmes based on communities, rights and inclusion with LPT’s real world knowledge of service delivery and development for people with mental health problems and learning disabilities. This unique approach has enabled the Trust to make communities, rights and inclusion the heart of its vision for advancing wellbeing. This also enables the trust to make a significant contribution to local commissioning intentions and national policy drivers e.g.

• clinical developments that increase care closer to home and provide more personalised services in response to patients & carers’ expressed choices as active partners in the delivery of that care;
• improve access and choice for those communities and service users that have been traditionally less able to make use of services or have their voices heard;
• strengthen service user, carer and community engagement and public accountability for local services through the development of Community and Service User Reference Panels and capacity building of local communities and service users to fully participate in the planning and delivery of services;
• increased knowledge and understanding about local communities that could assist in the commissioning of services that are reflective of current and future population demographics and health needs;
• development of Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMS) to enable the commissioning of services that demonstrate clear health outcomes based on an evidence base for service user experience;

• ensuring grater social inclusion through development of pro-active service user employment projects and the development of regional networks for wellbeing and social inclusion that can influence the wider health and social care economy in keeping with the objectives of PSA 16 (“increase the proportion of socially excluded adults in settled accommodation and employment, education or training”)
• reducing inequalities especially through greater consistency and equity in access to services through community and service user led improvements in care; enhanced learning and training opportunities and new performance frameworks for equality and diversity;
• development and capacity building for community groups and third sector agencies that can support partnership development with local authority and healthcare agencies and potentially enable new community providers to enter the healthcare economy.
CORIIN also hopes to work directly with local commissioners on:

• improving health and reducing health inequalities;
• supporting personalised health programmes with increased access and choice for those target groups that have had limited involvement to date;
• identifying incentives and levers within the NHS and Local Authorities to increase investment in prevention by strengthening local community engagement and development of community and service user led social enterprises;
• realising the full potential of the NHS to work in partnership and promote Better Health for All as part of the Next Stage Review process and World Class Commissioning.
While the most immediate potential impacts of CORIIN can be realised within the local areas where the trust provides services, there is also scope for additional contributions at the regional level.

Workforce development
CORIIN will be making a substantial contribution to workforce development through  the accreditation of specific learning and teaching programmes aimed at improving organisational capacity to improve equality and diversity; the promotion and protection of human rights and clinical programmes that can support new models of care designed around community and service user engagement.

Third sector and social enterprise
CORIIN will facilitate partnerships with community groups and the third sector and will also help development of community groups to become social enterprises. The support structures and mentoring for social enterprise support could be extended to provide a much wider programme, including accredited courses and research to support social enterprises across the region.

Performance monitoring and management
Amongst the technical tools that CORIIN will be developing is the Diversity Assessment Package (DAP). The DAP has already been developed as a CD-ROM based self assessment tool for drug service providers on a national basis. CORIIN will use the LPT programme to develop the DAP for use in a mental health and learning disability Trust but it would equally be possible to develop a generic, Internet based tool for collecting data on performance and organisational development for equality and diversity across a range of health and social care organisations in the region.

Delivering Race Equality (DRE)
CORIIN will contribute within LPT to ensuring the Trust moves towards meeting the twelve characteristics for change identified within DRE. CORIIN will also strengthen community and service user engagement for Black and minority ethnic communities. The strength of expertise within CORIIN and the application of new models of care, research and learning and teaching could all greatly enhance DRE across the region.

Summary

CORRIN is a significant new partnership for ISCRI and one that will continue to grow and demonstrate important learning for the delivery of services that can meet a wide variety of current legislative and policy drivers for health and social care. The programme is due to run for two years and will involve various elements of ISCRI’s portfolio of projects and learning and teaching programmes.

It is hopes that CORIIN will have much to contribute to other providers and commissioners and at national policy levels.

If you would like to know more about CORIIN please contact Dr Jon Bashford: