Notts services win prestigious HSJ Award for partnership project supporting vulnerable people
The Nottingham City Placed Based Partnership won the Integrated Care Initiative of the Year Award at the HSJ Awards for its ground breaking work to improve how services in Nottingham work together to help people experiencing severe and multiple disadvantage. Severe Multiple Disadvantage (SMD) refers to the experience of having two or more complex and interconnected social issues, such as homelessness, mental health problems, substance misuse, and involvement with the criminal justice system.
Nottinghamshire Healthcare is integral to the work underway to bring together efforts and resources across our region so that people receive joined up and accessible care and support to improve their lives and reduce long-term reliance on reactive and emergency interventions across our system.
People who experience SMD are amongst the most vulnerable people in our population in their exposure to chronic health problems, shortened healthy life expectancy and premature death.
The prestigious 2025 HSJ Awards has been recognising and celebrating healthcare excellence for 40 years. This year's awards attracted more than 1,250 entries from across the health sector. With only 245 projects and individuals making it through to the final shortlist, the competition demonstrates the impressive scale of talent, commitment, and impact across the NHS and wider healthcare landscape.
Becky Sutton, Chief Operating Officer at Nottinghamshire Healthcare said:
We are absolutely thrilled to see the Nottingham City Place Based Partnership work win such a prestigious award.
We are really proud of our involvement in this work, and the commitment from everyone to work together to support vulnerable people in our community to have the care they need.
This award recognises the important progress being made to improve collaboration between the Trust and partners to empower us all to make a difference.
The Trust's involvement of the Nottingham City Place Based Partnership work includes leading the work looking into the prevalence, patterns of service use and outcomes for people experiencing SMD. This innovative work has helped to improve understanding of the opportunities to address the often stark health inequalities faced by people who experience SMD through collaborative working across all aspects of a person's situation in addition to their mental health needs.
We are also focused on improving pathways between services, including transitions for people leaving prison.
Improving access for vulnerable people through the Homeless Mental Health Team is another priority area for us in the project.
We also host the leadership of Nottingham's Changing Futures programme, a local partnership of 15 statutory and community sector organisations working to improve how efforts and resources are brought together across Nottingham's health and care system to provide the right help at the right time for people in need. Bobby Lowen, Programme Director - Changing Futures, employed by the Trust, is also the lead for the wider Place Based Partnership SMD programme.
As part of the Changing Futures programme there are a number of embedded practitioners who support system change across organisations. They are placed in probation, GP alliance, housing, social care, A&E at QMC, and the Trust host, Hayley Harris, is our very own embedded practitioner. We also have SMD/ Homeless teams in city and county providing support for people with SMD and providing outreach.
People with SMD face significant barriers to accessing healthcare (e.g. due to exclusions, inflexible appointments, fear and mistrust) and lack of alignment with the other help they need to improve their lives (e.g. housing and substance use treatment). This leads to poor experiences and outcomes for vulnerable people, system pressures caused by long-term and repeated use of intensive and emergency services, and additional demands on colleagues and staff working to keep up engagement and attend to wider challenges beyond their control.
People experiencing SMD often have more than one long term physical health condition . Many could be treated or managed through engagement with primary care and attention to their wider circumstances, but without support, people experiencing SMD often do not seek the help they need. Conditions go untreated, often leading to avoidable deterioration in mental and physical health and an increase in hospitalisations and premature mortality.
Because services are predominantly set up to focus on specific disease or issues, this unintentionally segments the responsibilities for the care of people experiencing SMD across multiple organisations. Our partnership model brings together the key partners to work around people's needs, not the other way around; and by working together, we can realise better outcomes for people and help to manage the stresses that we feel across our system. The Trust is proud to be a part of this partnership.
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