New Leadership Will Expand Expert Patients Programme, UK

Main Category: Public Health
Also Included In: Caregivers / Homecare
Article Date: 16 Sep 2006 - 18:00 PDT

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Health Minister Rosie Winterton today announced appointments to the board of the first national social enterprise organisation that will provide self-management courses and services to people with long-term health conditions.

The organisation will be a community interest company (CIC) that will deliver the NHS Expert Patients Programme (EPP). The EPP currently delivers quality assured courses that give people the skills and confidence to manage their long-term conditions. The courses are delivered by volunteer tutors who have a long-term condition themselves.

The new EPP CIC will market, deliver, expand and diversify the EPP programme to meet the needs of people in marginalised and vulnerable groups.

The members of the EPP CIC board are:

- Stephen Jacobs, OBE - Chair
- Deep Sagar - Non-executive director; and
- Femi Adewole - Non-executive director.

Health Minister Rosie Winterton said:

"The new EPP CIC will help achieve our commitment to increase EPP capacity from 12,000 course places a year to over 100,000 by 2012 as outlined in the Our health, our care, our say White Paper. I welcome these appointments to the board. All the members have a diverse and wide range of experience that will benefit the new company."

Harry Cayton, National Director for Patients and Public, said:

"We have now taken the first important steps to establish this company. It will develop exciting new approaches to self-management that will be more relevant to the young, vulnerable groups and ethnic minorities. The new board members will lead an organisation tasked with expanding the delivery of EPP services to a wide range of commissioners including health, social care and other independent organisations."

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1. Background of new board members:

Stephen Jacobs, OBE - Stephen has a long track record as a social entrepreneur especially in community regeneration. He is Chairman of Whipps Cross University Trust Hospital and has held a range of non-executive positions within the NHS. He was Director of Canning Town & Custom House Regeneration Project for the London Borough of Newham.

Deep Sagar - Deep has a background in business and marketing. He is Chairman of NHS 24 and has held several non-executive positions in the health, regulated and not-for-profit sectors. He was also Executive Director of Glasgow Employer Coalition (National Employment Panel).

Femi Adewole has a background in health and housing, and was appointed Investment Director at the Guinness Trust in 2005. He was previously Executive Director of the Bradford Community Housing Trust Group. Femi is also a carer.

2. The Expert Patients Programme (EPP) is a self-management programme for people living with any long-term health condition(s). Groups of 8-16 participants meet over six weekly sessions and are led through a structured course by trained volunteer tutors who are also living with a long-term condition. Each session (lasting two and a half hours) looks at ways to manage the effects of their long-term condition. For more information on the EPP, please go to: http://www.expertpatients.nhs.uk

3. Community interest companies (CIC) are social enterprise organisations that are overseen by the CIC regulator. The EPP CIC is a not-for-profit organisation that will operate as a business with the principle goal of improving the lives of people with long-term conditions but without tax benefits like charities.

4. The board members will not officially take responsibility for the EPP until the company is a legal entity and staff are transferred to it. This is expected to happen by the end of the year.

5. Social enterprises are businesses that are driven by social objectives rather than profits or shareholder value. They can be set up by staff and owned on a co-operative basis. The surplus/profits are reinvested into the services they provide or the communities they service.

6. Our Health, our care, our say White Paper can be downloaded from the Department of Health website

For further information please go to:
UK Department of Health

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