One year on from lockdown: building back fairer

We continued our work in neighbourhoods; working with organisations rooted in communities, we built on local knowledge to make sure residents were supported in a way that was tailored to local circumstances.

For example, we supported High Trees Community Development Trust to provide remote advice, wellbeing check-ins and loans of IT equipment to residents in Tulse Hill. The project supported 200 working-age adults in three housing estates who sought employment, education or housing assistance before the COVID-19 pandemic.

We also developed new initiatives to engage communities, landlords, employers and others.  This includes a partnership between Kineara and Southwark Law Centre to provide specialist legal advice for households most at risk of eviction, an initiative by Centre for Responsible Credit that coordinates creditors and GP surgeries to provide a COVID financial shield for people at risk and work by the Liminal Space to develop a programme to protect the health of night shift workers.

Reflections on the pandemic

Looking back over the past 12 months, I have three key reflections.

First, our multiple long-term conditions programme is more relevant than ever. We know that that people most likely to live with, or develop, a long-term health condition are at higher risk of serious illness from COVID-19, and that the causes of this are largely socio-economic.

Second, making sure systems are in place to support people before ‘cliff-edge’ moments is a collective responsibility. For example, people living with the dual burden of long-term conditions and financial ill-health continue to have limited options to manage both, even before the pandemic began.

Finally, some of the ways of working developed during the ‘emergency response’ phase of the pandemic can act as a blueprint for long-term systemic change. The projects I’ve been most inspired by bring together small groups of organisations that have a range of perspectives and skills with strong local and regional networks. They are creative, focused on fixing complex problems, and work in the context of where and how people live.

What does this mean for the future of our programme?

We know that focusing on environments and the circumstances of people’s lives will be central to a fairer post COVID-19 recovery.

In Lambeth, Black people are more likely to experience deprivation than people of other ethnicities and 29% of Black people in the borough live with two or more long-term conditions compared to 17% of their White neighbours. This is why we need to have a sharper focus on communities that have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, especially those that experience structural discrimination.

We have seen an extraordinary capacity for people to come together, and a previously unimaginable willingness to redefine the role of the state alongside other sectors – all of which are critical for many other global health challenges.

As an organisation and programme, we need to be flexible, open to new opportunities and support partners to be resilient to help break the link between poor health and work, housing and finances.

If you have an idea of how we may work together to make sure the post-COVID recovery is fair for all, please get in touch with us. You can also see what else we’ve been working on to support communities during the pandemic.