Medequip are in the process of setting up a Co-production Panel facilitated by Your Voice in Health and Social Care (yvhsc.org.uk) who hold the contracts for providing the local Healthwatch services across 6 London boroughs.
The panel will be made up of People who use our Services, representatives of Healthwatch, prescribers of community equipment and colleagues who work for Medequip.
The initial piece of work will be to review and adapt a standard user survey provided by Healthwatch to ensure that it covers all aspects of community equipment service provision, before it is circulated to the wider group of people who use the service.
Stage 2 will involve the collation of this feedback and identification of potential projects to review and change services appropriately taking into account wider Health and Social Care reforms that national and local government and the NHS policy leads and influences.
Volunteering
Medequip policy enables and encourages 8000 volunteer hours per year by our colleagues. Driven by our vision ‘Keeping People Independent for Longer’ we aim to work within our local communities to support projects and give something back.
Examples recently undertaken in London include a gardening project for Parkfield House Nursing Home in Uxbridge, providing support at Sahara Care, Barking and work at “Dexters Adventure Playground” part of the Big Kid Foundation in Lambeth. This is a youth club that has been closed for some time and needs quite a bit of attention to get it back up and running. We have also supported the Forever Young Festival in Greenwich and provided marshals for an Alzheimer’s Society Memory Walk.
Employing People Living with a Disability
In July 2021 Medequip agreed to work with the British Association for Supported Employment (BASE) to broaden the training and employment opportunities for disabled people. BASE have assisted in linking up each Medequip depot with local support organisations to recruit local people with a disability. Across the country this has resulted in Medequip employing an additional 8 people with a disability increasing the current total to 59 of our employees who declare they have a disability. In London, work with Dynamic Training Ltd, Forward2Employment and Maximus UK has added 5 new employees to our headcount to date.