Integrated Neighbourhood Teams in Lewisham – Codesign with People With Lived Experience
Integrated Neighbourhood Teams (INTs) are designed to meet the holistic needs of their local population, teams based in the neighbourhood are drawn from a range of partners across the community, including health, social care, voluntary and community housing and most importunately residents.
INTs are a way of working together as professionals and as a local community to: ensure people get the right care, at the right time, in the right place, from the right people, first time and to tackle health inequalities.
In Lewisham we are initially focusing on Long Term Conditions, starting with four cardiovascular conditions – Atrial Fibrillation, Hypertension, Diabetes, and chronic kidney disease. After engaging with local stakeholders (voluntary sector, healthcare staff) we have developed a codesign project to reach and include Lewisham residents.
The codesign project with People with Lived Experience (PWLE) recruited residents in Lewisham in December 2024 and January 2025. The group learnt about the aim of the INT model and shared their experiences to co-design the service to better support patients with multiple cardiovascular conditions. Our codesign partners joined six design sessions over February and March 2025.
The design sessions focussed on; communication with patients, designing a new Lifestyle questionnaire, group consultations and designing the approach when patients are discharged. The group has also addressed how to make reasonable adjustments for those with Learning Disabilities (LD) and Serious Mental Illness (SMI).
The codesigns sessions were a great success and the outcomes were shared with partners at a Workshop on 19 March. This event was attended by Lewisham Council, DWP, PCNs, Social Prescribing teams, Neighbourhood Coordinators, LGT and SLaM. The aim of the session was to present the revised INT model, including key changes as a result of input from all our Codesign partners.
Fiona Kirkman, System Development Lead, said: “INTs are central to our commitment to provide personalised care and improve the health and wellbeing of residents. To do this we need to work collaboratively with all our stakeholders, including people with experience of health and care services. The codesign sessions has been fantastic, and the model has changed because of this input.
We would like to thank our codesign partners for their support, commitment, and enthusiasm throughout. Your voices have grounded our work in what truly matters.”
The project was celebrated during a Thank you event held on 21 May, where all codesign members heard the You Said, We Did elements resulted from the codesign.
Malachy, one of the PLWE, shared: “I want to say a big thank you for involving me in the INT Co-design programme. It has been a very fruitful & purposeful experience for me. This group exercise has been a very valuable insight to a world I knew little of but was very fulfilling with positive outcomes. I have met some lovely people led so well the Lewisham INT team. As time unfolded the project has proven to be very enjoyable and I hope it will all be useful for this very exciting initiative as it is realised.”