Long-term Conditions Project - The story so far

Last year has been a great year for this project! As Project Manager at Manchester Settlement, it has been an absolute delight leading this 2-year project, which started 1st April 2025 and runs until 31st March 2027; funded by the Manchester Local Care Organisation (MLCO).

The project aims to enable targeted communities with long term health conditions to take control of their own health by embracing the existing relationships, trust and connectivity that underpin the work of key VCSE community organisations by improving awareness of and management of long-term health conditions (LTC’s) and embedding ‘The Health Creation Framework’ in all processes.

 
The first phase was extremely busy! Recruiting four volunteer lead partners (one in each of the North Manchester neighbourhoods), Nurturing Foundations, FC United of Manchester, The Guidance Hub and Being There, who in turn recruited four voluntary organisations; and so, we are actually working with 20 voluntary organisations!  After recruitment, a training programme consisting of 7 modules was delivered to ensure everyone was singing from the same page regarding ‘Health Creation’ and project management (knowledge and skills).  We even delivered a session on ‘Marketing and Branding’ and now have our own ‘Manchester Health Creation’ logo which is being used by our funders and our partners! We then added to the overarching project structure by introducing ‘Partner Meetings’ and ‘Reflection Meetings’ to ensure that the whole team connected and that project feedback could be collated in a trusted and safe space; these will continue till the end of the project!
Figure 1. Nurturing Foundations Partner delivering health creation training to their groups.

Our continued partnership with ‘The Health Creation Alliance’ led us to present at their SUMMIT in Manchester last September, a high-profile event; bringing together Shamime from Bollyfit Active, showcasing her community-led project, MLCO funders to showcase good practice in commissioning the VCSE sector in a health creating way and Manchester Settlement highlighting how to manage community projects embedding health creation in all the interventions.

Now all Partner organisations are ready and prepared with their project plans; starting their projects with their 4 micro-organisations working on the NHS priorities of Cardiovascular Disease, Hypertension and COPD.  So, this year will be very exciting! I am eager to see health creation come to life in projects and to continuing our growing professional relationships with so many people from different sectors!  Roll on 2026!

Contact
For further information regarding this project or ‘Health Creation’, please contact Maqbul Rose – Health and Wellbeing Manager, Manchester Settlement email [email protected].