Over 100 local people gathered today in Deptford to take part in decision day for the latest Participatory budgeting event run by Lewisham Health NHS Trust and commissioned by Public Health Lewisham. I joined the queue at 9.30, many of those around me nervously clutching their presentation materials, notice boards or hand written notes on coloured cue cards. There was a real buzz, enhanced by lively music to welcome us on a cold but fine morning to the Lady Florence Hall. People were animatedly networking and meeting old friends. 

I chatted to Jenny Couper from the Newgate Cross Charitable Trust, the legacy body of the local New Deal for Communities programme. Jenny was here because the Trust had decided to use £10,000 of their limited funds to invest in the Choosing Health participatory budget, thereby topping up the otherwise available £70k. Jenny recognised that pooling budgets helped keep the Trust at the heart of the community and supported locally based health initiatives. 

Mark Drinkwater from Voluntary Action Lewisham was the host and compered the day, and so he introduced the rules of the scoring, doing a good job putting tense presenters at their ease. He individually introduced the members of the organising team and explained the criteria for scoring bids. Mark stressed the health and wellbeing outcomes towards which the money on offer was being directed. 

Chris Baguma, Public Health Programme Manager, who is involved in commissioning PB as part of the North Lewisham Health Improvement Plan, explained the links to the wider activities of his service, and explained how the NHS locally has been supporting PB since 2008. Over 1000 local people and small groups have been directly involved through the programme in that time. Chris especially praised the commitment of the steering group that had supported the process. 

Like many other small investment PB events they used a 3 minute presentation format, with timekeeping from the back by coloured flags. Presentations were run in batches of 5 colour groups with matching coloured score cards collected between each round. Around 50 groups were presenting from a wide cross section of the community. Programme lead Keji Kazzim explained to me how participation has grown over the last few years from 20 groups to the current total. This year round £250,000 worth of bids have been logged. Keji also explained how the event enabled NHS Lewisham to reach and out work with people in an accessible way. 

Repeating the event over a number of years gave time for groups to develop their voice and improve their community led health work. Drawing out again the great opportunity PB brings to support all aspects of health promotion and community development. Every group, successful or not has the chance of a follow up session with a local community development team to see if they can get funding or support elsewhere. 

The range of projects was wide and represented the less well known members of community such as French Africans, Columbians and Somalia groups as well as the predominately white or Afro-Caribbean population. The scope of services being led by the community encompassed young and old and ranged from befriending, gentle forms of exercise, diet, and stress counselling to more energetic exercise such as rowing or Zumba dance. So Funkacise, Tae Kwando and body movement all featured, as well as community media, pensioner activity classes, anti-smoking groups and ICT projects. Even something as simple as learning and playing chess as a social activity that increased mental well being, reduced stress, kept the mind sharp and led to greater self confidence was on offer. As well as value for money, a theme most groups stressed, education, information and self help (such as a community library that’s setting up a local walking group and healthy eating project) featured strongly. 

It all tapped into current government policy around community activism, community investment towards wellbeing and health prevention. In their partnership working, signposting and targeting of limited resources the community seemed effective.

The only downside was not to seeing more senior officers and politicians there – they are the people who hold the purse strings to much larger sums. It was a great day, achieved a lot, and they would have enjoyed seeing the health promotion work the frontline does day to day being embraced by all. Thanks to the citizens of Deptford for making me feel welcome and for an enjoyable, healthy morning.