Lincolnshire independent Living Partnership (LILP) was recently invited to speak at the National Housing Federation’s Smaller Housing Associations’ Conference in London.
Our Chief Executive Nick Chambers was joined by LILP colleagues Chris Wheway, CEO of St Barnabas Lincolnshire Hospice and Michele Jolly, CEO of Age UK Lincoln and South Lincolnshire, to deliver a talk entitled ‘Doing more with less: supporting the health service through effective partnerships’.
Together they spoke about facing up to the challenges within health and housing, provided a case study on making partnerships work in practice and gave advice on how to leverage resources to provide the best service for residents and the local community.
The Smaller Housing Associations’ Conference, which took place on 6th and 7th November, was an excellent opportunity for LILP and gave voice to the work of its partners in protecting the vulnerabilities of the older community.
The conference was attended by key figures in the housing and social care industry. The national platform was a big milestone for the partnership, which was formed by local organisations five years ago.
Lincs Independent Living Partnership (LILP) is a consortium of four local charitable organisations, Age UKL&SL, LHP and St Barnabas and LACE Housing. We work at the heart of the community to promote independent living. Together we look at ways to support the wider community through joint working and identifying the needs between our organisations.
Our involvement in LILP allows us to effectively integrate our services with other like-minded organisations and work collaboratively to respond to the needs of our residents and the people of Lincolnshire.
Nick’s presentation at the conference covered the benefits of the consortium and its work, including the wellbeing service, the Hospital Avoidance Response Team (HART) and our transport and resettlement service.
Lincolnshire is the UK’s fourth largest county and, currently, 23% (172,000) of its population is over 65 years old. During the talk, Nick drew attention to the fact that this figure is set to increase; by 2040, the number of people aged 65 to 74 and 75 and over is expected to rise by 14% and 87% respectively.
Therefore, the demand for housing to support Lincolnshire’s older community is also rising; research undertaken by Housing LIN in 2018 identified the need for 1,110 homes for affordable rent, 8,000 homes to buy, 2,000 extra care homes and 3,000 nursing bed spaces.
This is a need we’re striving to meet at LACE Housing, which is why we created 82 new homes across three developments in Lincolnshire this year and have committed to delivering even more.
St Barnabas Lincolnshire Hospice offers the older community specialist inpatient and palliative care, day therapy and an in-home hospice, while Age UK Lincoln and South Lincolnshire supports over 4,000 people aged 50 and over in the area every week by delivering services and hosting activities to improve their quality of life.
The other organisation associated with LILP is the Lincolnshire Housing Partnership – a housing association formed in April 2018 following a merger between Boston Mayflower and Shoreline Housing Partnership.
Each LILP organisation plays to its individual strengths and the ability to work together efficiently has been finely tuned over the past five years to develop a strong working relationship which will continue to grow into the future.
