Now in its 20th year, the LIFT programme has brought about the largest and most concentrated investment in the primary healthcare and community estate across England. In Liverpool, the LIFT Programme, delivered by Liverpool & Sefton Health Partnership (LSHP), has resulted in the development of 15 high-quality health and wellbeing hubs.
This investment in Liverpool has been significant, with many far-reaching benefits for local communities. The 15 LIFT buildings across Liverpool provide world-class environments for patients and staff, sitting in the heart of their communities, offering a wide range of health and wellbeing services designed to meet the needs of the local population. Since its inception in 2004, LSHP has developed a long and proud history of community activity and community engagement, supporting the health and wellbeing of local communities.
Humphrey Claxton, non-executive Chairman of LSHP reflects on these achievements:
“I’m very proud that it was LSHP, in association with Liverpool PCT - with whom we had a very strong and productive relationship - that saw the need for centre managers and convinced the PCT of the benefits. As we implemented the centre manager role across the estate in Liverpool, we delivered a better experience for the occupiers of the buildings and the managers began a whole series of relatively simple community engagements. We were able to demonstrate the benefits of this work, relative to the alternative of the building occupiers being left to organise themselves to manage the buildings. The quality of our centre managers and what they did convinced CHP, when the organisation took over as head tenant from the PCTs, to roll out the concept across their entire estate and there is no doubt that the role is well established and viewed as indispensable. Remember, it all started at LSHP!
The establishment of the LSHP Foundation followed on from several years of feeling that we should be doing more in the community and making some ad hoc financial contributions to good causes. Setting up the Foundation and funding it brought much more focus to our contribution to our communities, forcing us to be clear about our objectives and criteria. Since then, I am really proud that the Foundation has supported a number of very worthwhile initiatives, such as: - books donated to local school children, including Garston Primary - support to help those in most need to get through COVID, through Picton and Kensington Neighbourhood Health Centres - Christmas presents donated to the cancer unit at Alder Hey; and it's this experience that has been fundamental to developing our thinking on how we can create social value. The recent Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership Social Value Award has given us the accreditation which represents our first step in the third phase of supporting the communities served by our health centres. Just as winning RoSPA Gold Awards for our health and safety management and performance in many consecutive years embedded health and safety excellence into the way we do business, so this award should embed state of the art tools and techniques into the way we seek, evaluate and invest in projects to deliver social value that very considerably leverage our financial resources and presence in our communities. We have been on a journey that started with knowing we should be doing more; involved experiments in what that could look like, and, which helped us to learn what works well and what doesn’t; and has brought us to the point where we are recognised by the Social Value Award and are in a position to undertake some truly transformational projects…. The journey continues!”