Shedder Bob was watching the news three nights ago and saw an item about Frome in Somerset. It was health and community related and was covered by several media organisations.
Such is the community activity and cooperation between organisations, that there has been significantly reduced emergency admissions to hospital. Elsewhere in the region, Bob heard, emergency admissions had gone up.
There is a Men’s Shed in Frome and they had contacted us because they were planning to open a Women’s Shed a la She Shed. So, hearing about Frome in the news we contacted their Shed to get background on this new news.
Below is an excellent illustration of community in picture form and how the Mendips go about developing it bottom up. Also a Guardian piece that Frome Shed pointed us to that puts into words the news item and a paper that summarises the results of the 3 year Frome study.
A word of warning which they expressed in conversation and is also known by Graham from personal experience when in the South, a brilliant venture is not translated elsewhere simply by money or process. The most important critical success factors are the people involved and their mindset for collaboration.
- Picture a health cohesive community: HCM-foldout-A5v4AW[1017]
- Media coverage in print:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/21/town-cure-illness-community-frome-somerset-isolation http://www.frometimes.co.uk/2018/02/27/frome-leads-the-way-in-easing-the-nhs%E2%80%88crisis/
- Summary report on findings of the 3 year study of “compassion in community”: https://www.resurgence.org/magazine/article5050-compassion-is-the-best-medicine.html
- Short segment of ITV report (much longer in newscast): Is this the future of healthcare_ Somerset community classes cutting hospital admission – ITV News