The part of housing in the well being of residents ought to not be underestimated

Housing has fallen into a rather lazy consensus about wellness, blaming them for our problems with engaging. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Photos

Final Thursday was the UK’s initial Time to Talk day: 24 hours in which we had been all encouraged to have conversations about mental health.

Some of people conversations would also have been about housing. The government is more and more recognising the relevance of housing in delivering very good overall health and social care and it is great that the government is putting £3.8bn into trying to make integration amongst wellness and housing work, despite the fact that how a lot of that income will uncover its way to housing is yet to be witnessed.

But for all the advances, the frontlines of housing and wellness nevertheless appear worlds apart. As housing associations, we have struggled to get traction in the planet of health, and well being and housing integration usually feels a prolonged way out of attain.

The reality is, we have acquired to up our game. Housing has fallen into a rather lazy consensus about overall health, blaming them for our troubles with engaging. We have been fixated by the commissioning agenda. We have been obsessed with chasing the cash and as well articles to be fed crumbs on the edge. We child ourselves that we have the answers even when we struggle to articulate what it is that we truly do or how we measure it and how we know if it truly is any good.

We seem programmed to constantly ask what we can get from well being, rather than be safe in proposing what we can give. We in no way appear to have a conversation that promotes our accomplishment as asset managers, with capital and access to finance that health demands and doesn’t have.

Right here are three items we are performing wrong:

* We demonstrate no real understanding of how overall health operates, how it’s financed, what matters to the NHS and why. We never seem to the NHS as potential buyers of our capabilities and experience.

* We speak to the incorrect individuals and assume them to have all the answers

* We invest far too much time making an attempt to influence the overall health and wellbeing boards, when that is not in which true discussions about innovation are happening

What need to we do as an alternative?

* We need to look much more in direction of the companies of NHS companies, than to the commissioners. We require to realize that the NHS Trusts are the significant suppliers of healthcare in this country, and function with them to reform the system. They are our potential clients and we need to have to carry convincing company instances to them.

* We need to work alongside other non-revenue organisations to place forward the ideas that will drive greater integration amongst overall health and housing

We have launched our improvement programme for housing associations serious about coming into new healthcare markets with NHS Mental Overall health Trusts. Seventeen housing associations have signed up to constructing their skills, competences and capability, ending with new collaborations with the NHS.

To accompany this development programme, we will publish a series of blogs that will debunk a handful of myths about wellness with a view to constructing a new narrative, offer you and engagement for housing. Along the way we may tread on a few toes, ruffle a number of feathers, and upset some of the comfy housing sensibilities. But by the end, we’ll be greater placed to complete in the healthcare marketplace.

Andrew van Doorn is deputy chief executive of social enterprise and thinktank HACT. This is an edited version of a weblog that originally appeared on the HACT website.

This articles is brought to you by Guardian Specialist. Interested in housing? Join the housing network for a lot more information, analysis and comment direct to you.

The part of housing in the well being of residents ought to not be underestimated