The Reorganisation of Health, Welfare and Policing Structures, expedited by Covid-19 Local residents, particularly the young, old and vulnerable are now at greater risk (both long-term suffering and even death) from the side effects of lockdown, including lack of access to services for long-standing or emerging conditions, depression and domestic abuse, than from Covid itself.

Lambeth Together, Lambeth Made and Lambeth Made Safer have ambitious programmes, not all of them yet announced, to address the consequences and to help economic and social recovery, using the structures re-organised over the past year.

Success depends on better contact with local organisations and employers, including the many voluntary and self-help groups which have emerged over the past six months as well as those which went gone into hibernation.     

All those involved recognise the need to improve contact and cross-boundary co-operation at the local level, across community (culture, faith, postcode etc.) boundaries:

• For Health and Welfare that means using the new Primary Care Networks.
• For Skills and Jobs, there are plans for a West Norwood “Hub” with satellite access to reduce the need for teenagers to cross post-code gang boundaries.
• For Violence reduction and victim support the new strategy has yet to be communicated.
• There is a common recognition of the need to physically deliver information on local access processes to those not contactable by other means.

Under the NHS Long Term Plan, Lambeth is part of the  South East London Clinical Commissioning Group with funding and delivery devolved to Primary Care Networks: local groupings of GP practices. Those covering Norwood are the Old Dairy (Paxton Green, the Old Dairy and Brockwell Park) and SE Lambeth (Herne Hill, North Wood, Deerbrook, Brixton Hill and Knights Hill. The catchment areas for both straddle the borders of the borough and Healthwatch Lambeth is working closely with Healthwatch Southwark.

Lambeth has restructured childrens, adult and mental welfare operations under Lambeth Together with four delivery alliances:

• Living Well, supporting those suffering mental illness and distress,
• Neighbourhood and wellbeing, for a variety of conditions including long term illnesses      
• Children and Young People , tto make Lambeth one of the best places to grow up
• Personalised support , to bring services together for those who need them.

Early deliverables include a Youth Outreach programme focused on helping the most disadvantaged parts of Gipsy Hill, organised by a consortium led by the Rathbone Society.

The Metropolitan Police merged the Lambeth and Southwark Commands, extending schools liaison activities into primary schools. This has delayed implementation of changes to the terms of reference and structure of the Lambeth Safer Neighbourhood Board proposed after a major consultation a couple of years ago. Norwood has the great advantage that the Safer Neighbourhood Teams for Gipsy Hill, Knights Hill and Thurlow Park are based at Gipsy Hill Police station alongside those for Dulwich Wood  and Dulwich Village.

As yet frontline delivery has not been joined up across organisational boundaries at the local level. A core objective of the Norwood Community Safety Partnership (NCSP) is to use voluntary co-operation to facilitate this process, piloting processes which respect, build on and join up the evolving Lambeth, NHS and Police frameworks.

​And read on for:
Residents Priorities
The Way Ahead
What Can You Do?