Abstract

This insightful debate, ‘Joining the dots in the community’, featured an esteemed panel of people with enormous expertise in working in communities of different kinds – in housing estates, with homeless people, in advocating for the health needs of people from black, Asian and minority communities, and across the whole of Scotland. They discussed how we can build and develop true communities, and explored the role of the health, education, housing and other sectors and professionals in this ambition. And they debated how we can join the dots between all the organisations and people working in a community to maximise their impact.

The panel included:

Chair: 

• Dr Fiona Godlee, editor-in-chief, BMJ

Panel:

• Lord John Bird, founder, Big Issue
• Heather Henry, Queen’s Nurse; founder, BreathChamps; project manager, Salford Dadz
• Sir Harry Burns, professor of global public health, University of Strathclyde; former chief medical officer for Scotland
• Heather Nelson, chief executive, Black Health Initiative
• Lord Nigel Crisp, independent crossbench member, House of Lords; former CEO of the NHS in England, 2000-2006

The webinar series follows on from the launch of Health is made at home, hospitals are for repairs, a new book authored by Lord Nigel Crisp, former chief executive of the NHS, in which he tells the stories of the ‘health creators’. They are the people all over the UK who are tackling the causes of today’s major health problems – loneliness, stress, obesity, poverty and addictions – in their homes, workplaces and communities.