Community-led health organisations at a tipping point amid worsening health inequalities
/This article was featured in the SCDC Weekly - 5th June 2024.
Increased demand, reduced resources, and a sector struggling to provide the preventative approaches we need to tackle Scotland’s worsening health inequalities.
That’s the stark picture painted in a new report from CHEX which brings together some of the experiences of organisations using community development approaches to improving health.
Based on interviews with 42 individuals across 31 agencies, almost all participants described a working environment where they felt overwhelmed by the level of demand, and the lack of resource.
Core funding has become increasingly precarious, threatening the viability of organisations being able to continue in their current form. “It’s like playing whack a mole”, said one person, with resources taken up by frontline delivery and meeting acute need rather than longer-term planning.
We know that community-led health organisations can provide a meaningful role in supporting statutory services through preventative approaches to improved health and wellbeing. However, groups told CHEX that, too often, the starting point for discussion with funders is how they can support services, rather than meeting the specific needs of the community.
Despite these challenges, there are innovative examples of the statutory and voluntary sectors coming together to deliver positive, local work. The pandemic showed how, with shared purpose, leadership, trust, and a sharing of power by statutory agencies, it was possible to "get things done".
Many of us share the outrage of Scotland’s worsening health inequalities, and CHEX will continue to support the community-led health organisations on the frontline of this challenge – and call for community-led health funding that would be a drop in the ocean compared to the ‘downstream’ healthcare effects a lack of action will mean.
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