I just thought I’d update you with some good, and not so good news.

Firstly, the bad news. Unfortunately, our Stop Smoking Service contract in Hammersmith and Fulham will finish at the end of March 2023. It’s an email that I thought I’d never have to send, but after many years of delivery and support for the residents of H&F we’re left with a difficult position. The contract has run its course, after numerous extensions and re-modelling projects the council have decided to link the stop smoking service into an Addictive Substances Programme alongside Drug & Alcohol services from April 23 onwards. The stop smoking element has downsized to 4 distinct target groups, unlike the universal offer that is currently in place. As we’re not a clinical substance misuse provider we’re unfortunately not in a position to bid for the service. We have been working with a potential bidder to see whether there was any possibility of us acting as a partner in their bid, but unfortunately those discussions have proved fruitless.

The H&F service was Thrive Tribe’s first ever contract after the company was formed back in2008, some of the team have been with us since the beginning of our organisation and own numerous blue hoodies! For several years it has regularly been England’s best service, rated 1 in the national league tables for numbers of quitters per 100,000 population (per capita) out of over 150services, and it won a Royal Society of Public Health Award for the judicial work that Pam has led in Wormwood Scrubs. Smoking prevalence has dropped to12.9% in the borough,  which is below the English average and remarkably it has almost halved since 2009, coming down from a height of 24.9%. More information can be found here.

We’re still delivering our programme and will continue to serve the residents of H&F until March 23, but I’m sure you’ll join me in offering our gratitude to everyone who has been involved in any way  over the years (recruiting clients to the programme, triage, delivering clinics, training etc…..), and we’re working hard with the current team to find suitable opportunities within Thrive Tribe for their long term future. As a consequence, we will need to prioritise the team for appropriate roles within Thrive Tribe as they arise, and we’ll be supporting that transition.

Now the good news! There are exciting things that we’re working on in London that I’m confident will emerge over the next few months, these will broaden the current service offer for the services.

1. Westminster and RBKC have confirmed that they would like to extend  the NHS Health Check Promotion Role for another year, to the end of Dec 2023. We’ve been holding this recruitment until we were sure, it creates a vacancy in Erin’s team as an RGO and she’ll be releasing more details soon.
2. As you know Fiona succeeds Samia from January as Head of Service and this has created an opportunity for a Health Coach Lead in her team. More details to follow.
3. We’ve had advanced discussions with Westminster and RBKC and they have confirmed that they would like to press ahead with a new Vape Project from April onwards, more information will become available as we finalise the details.
4. They’re also keen to include a Falls Prevention Programme from April onwards next year, again watch this space we’ll let you know when we know more.
5. There have been good discussions with Public Health and CNWL regarding our Gloji Mind + Project which is progressing nicely alongside the work we’re doing with NWL CCG by supplying Health Coaches through ARRS funding, both of these projects have current vacancies.

If you have any questions feel free to give me a bell.