We’ve been seeing what a difference earlier support can make through our work with our Urgent Emergency Care partners in Blackburn with Darwen, Blackpool, Lancaster, Morecambe and Central Preston.

Rather than waiting until someone reaches crisis point, local organisations are working directly with people in their own communities, building relationships, understanding the challenges they’re facing and helping them find the right support.

Sometimes that’s helping someone understand what support they need, manage their symptoms, access Pharmacy support. Other times, it’s about addressing loneliness, financial worries, housing problems or simply giving someone the confidence to ask for help.

The results have been really encouraging.

Between September 2025 and March 2026, the programme recorded more than 18,420 engagements through community activities and support. Its impact reporting also identified 7,950 A&E attendances and 1870 ambulance callouts avoided through earlier intervention.

Those figures are significant, particularly when we consider the pressures facing our hospitals. But for me, what’s just as important is what they mean for the people involved.

It’s someone getting reassurance before their anxiety becomes overwhelming. It’s a family being connected with practical help rather than struggling alone. Or someone having a trusted person to talk to when they don’t know where else to turn.

And it shows what can happen when we stop looking at services in isolation and start thinking about how they can work together.

Making better use of our communities

We’re now building on that approach with our new Community Wellbeing Hub in Preston, and it’s a project I’m particularly excited about.

Working with Lancashire County Council, Lancashire Teaching Hospital and local VCFSE partners, we’ve been able to make use of an existing community building at Lady Elsie Finney House Day Centre in Ingol.

Like many community buildings, the centre isn’t used to its full potential during evenings and weekends. So rather than looking for somewhere new, we’ve been able to bring organisations together and make better use of a space that’s already there.

From 24 October, the hub will offer local people somewhere welcoming and familiar to go for advice, reassurance, activities and practical support.

Initially, Calm Together and Regenerage will provide sessions, helping people with everything from worries about their health and emotional wellbeing to loneliness and everyday challenges.

We’re working closely with Lancashire Teaching Hospitals and other partners to explore how the hub can support people returning home from hospital, helping them stay connected and access the support they need.

We’re bringing services into a community, at times when other support may not be available, and making it easier for people to have a conversation before a problem becomes more serious.

And we’re creating opportunities for local organisations to get involved, bringing their own experience, knowledge and relationships into the hub. We would love to hear from organisations who would like to get involved.

Strength in working together

One of the things that’s really encouraged recently is the interest this work is generating.

I’ve had the opportunity to share some of the learning from our Blackburn programme with senior colleagues at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, and the conversations that followed showed just how much interest there is in finding different ways to support people.

There’s a growing recognition that helping people stay well isn’t something hospitals or GPs can do alone.

Our sector has an enormous amount to offer. We have organisations that are already part of their communities, understand the people they support and have spent years building relationships and trust.

What we need to do is find more opportunities to bring those strengths together.

For Spring North, that means continuing to work with our members and partners to develop new approaches, make better use of available resources and attract investment into services that can make a real difference.

The Preston UEC Wellbeing hub is a good example of that. It’s bringing together the local authority, health services and community organisations around a shared aim, while making use of an existing building in a way that benefits local people.

Of course, we’ll need to see how the project develops and understand what works. But if we can demonstrate the value of this approach, there’s a real opportunity to explore how similar models could work in other communities.

Looking ahead

As we head into what will undoubtedly be another challenging winter, I think there’s a real opportunity for our sector to show just how much it can contribute.

We know the pressures are there, but we also know that our communities have enormous strengths. Local organisations are often best placed to reach people who might otherwise struggle to access support, and sometimes relatively small changes can make a big difference.

By working together, sharing what we know and being prepared to try different approaches, we can help more people get the support they need, when they need it.

And ultimately, that’s what Spring North is here to do.

Thank you

Thank you to all our members and partners for the work you continue to do across Lancashire and South Cumbria.

It’s your commitment, local knowledge and willingness to work together that makes opportunities like these possible.

Martin Hartley-Smith
Chief Executive, Spring North