Chapter 4: Coming together to respond to the pandemic
Transformation and innovation in a fast changing world
Organisations and services have had to change the way they operate in order to meet Covid-19 legislation, government guidance and evolving needs. Necessity has sparked innovation. Some service users have welcomed new ways of accessing services, for others it is more difficult.
Set up in 2018, Art Diamonds uses arts activities to improve wellbeing and connections in people of retirement age through creativity.
We've stayed in touch through fortnightly newsletters with creative ideas to try at home, posted out Art activity packs, virtual tours with galleries and online workshops. Our Art Diamonds have really appreciated feeling part of a community and sharing what they've been up to individually at home. With additional support through the Loneliness Fund in 2021, we focussed on new activities that weren't online to reach Art Diamonds who hadn't been able to engage with screen-based workshops.
A local artist found a creative solution to working with communities in residential care and sheltered housing. 'Windows' enabled older residents to connect safely with the artist through a drawing activity on each side of a glass window, watching each other's artwork grow.
Karolynne Hart, Cultural and Arts Programme Manager, Gateshead Libraries, Arts and Heritage, Gateshead Council. (Art Diamonds Window Project, photo by Mark Savage)
Throughout the lockdown periods core primary care services continued to be needed and GPs have turned to the telephone and to video conferencing to communicate with many of their patients. Using these modern tools has enabled GPs and nurses working in practice and in the out of hours periods to contact and provide care to patients and reduce the dangers to more vulnerable patients for whom an attendance at a surgery premises could be risky.
The continued, and currently increasing, risk of infection makes the need for the ongoing use of these consulting methods necessary although an increasing number of patients are being seen face to face.
Dr Alexander Liddle, GP, CBC Health Gateshead
The Gateshead Sexual Health Team rapidly developed a new online condom and community collection scheme to support the provision of contraception during Covid-19.
Access to longer acting contraception, such as the injection and implant, was restricted during the pandemic and could have led to unwanted pregnancies and potential future pressures on the social care system. Gateshead Sexual Health Team quickly developed online schemes to make other forms of contraception much more readily available. The scheme proved a big success with over 1,000 online orders and enabled local people to have condoms delivered direct to their door during lockdown.
Dan Dobson, Sexual Health Outreach Lead, South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust
"Life has changed a lot for me in ways I didn't think of before, I'm not good on the internet so don't use Zoom, I can't go in cafés where you have to order things via apps as I don't have them, I prefer to pay by cash and everywhere is card now."
Service user, Tyneside Women's Health
We're at an interesting crossroads, there is a real appetite for change. We've been able to implement things that we've talked about for a long time like digital access. There is a whole world of opportunity that has opened up. However, there is also a need to give people a sense of security and a return to normality.
Sarah Gorman, Chief Executive Officer, Edberts House
The next chapters focus on the impact of the pandemic on our Health and Wellbeing Policy strategic objectives.