Public health

The Assembly's Regeneration Committee’s report, “Creative tensions: Optimising the benefits of culture through regeneration”, responds to the impact of gentrification on the arts and culture, making a number of recommendations to the London Mayor, from collecting better data on artists' workspaces to protection measures for grassroots venues. The committee chair,  Navin Shah, says in his introduction to the report that "Regeneration should be much more than economic development and physical improvements to infrastructure and the public realm".

This one-day event is designed for those responsible for adult social care, including commissioners and providers of services. It will focus on a key challenge facing the social care system: how to achieve more with fewer resources.

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The People and Communities Board has published a series of "high impact actions" it hopes will accelerate the adoption of person- and community-centred approaches to health and care. The Board's report to the Chief Executive of NHS England, "A new relationship with people and communities", sets out six key actions that will help deliver Chapter Two of the Five Year Forward View, which set out the vision of a health and care system which fully engages people in their health, care and wellbeing.

The Care Quality Commission has announced it will be working with a number of ‘Tell us about your care’ partner organisations: Carers UK, Disability Rights UK, Mind, The National Autistic Society, Patients Association, and the Relatives & Residents Association.

The organisations will pass information to the CQC with the aim of improving its regulation of health and care services, and helping to identify best practice.

Chris Day, Director of Engagement at the Care Quality Commission, said:

Cultures of Nature and Wellbeing is a new 2-year AHRC funded research project exploring links between literature, health and environmentalism over the last century. It will look at current research into nature and wellbeing and the role of the arts and humanities in developing this relationship.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is planning changes to the way the public can help guide its areas of focus in the future. The changes present opportunities for non-health professionals to suggest areas for study and attention for the body which determines health and spending priorities for the NHS.

Following the report of the AHRC Cultural Value Project earlier this year, King’s College London is undertaking a scoping project to explore how research into the impact of culture on society might best be supported in the future.

Three leading health charities have warned of a potential £1.9 billion adult social care funding gap caused by local authority cuts and rising demand.

The Alzheimer’s Society has called on local authorities to increase provision of personal-care budgets (which can be used for cultural and social activities) for people with dementia. Less than a third of people receiving social care support for problems with memory and cognition have a personal budget, despite the government’s aspirations for a person-centred care and support system.

London Councils, the body which represents all of London’s boroughs, has issued a call to Government asking for greater emphasis on prevention and increased investment in social care.

The policy document details the areas where integration between health and social care is coming under pressure and makes a series of recommendations for improvements in integration.