Issue details
Aberfeldy WellOne
The Aberfeldy WellOne vision is a shared approach to health, wellbeing and community services to enhance health improvement and reduce health inequalities.
Delivery of the vision will drive the planning and implementation of services, operations, building design and fit-out of the Aberfeldy New Village development. Within this space, the community will have a new state of the art health centre, new community hub and a café which will occupy the ground and first floor with a gross internal area of 1,366 m2.
The heart of this programme is to better coordinate primary healthcare services, alongside social care, public health and community health services to seek to improve both physical and mental health; as well as to reduce isolation, connect people and cultures, and support children, young people and their families.
This proposal focusses on the fit-out of the community café to complete the integrated health and wellbeing facility.
The community cafe will be supported by an experienced independent operator in partnership with Poplar HARCA with a focus on quality and healthy produce. It will provide nutritious and affordable food with two or three world cuisine inspired dishes every lunch time. A wide range of dietary needs will be catered for with a creative, thoughtful approach.
The cafe will have high quality contemporary design with an open plan kitchen suitable for providing hot food at lunch or dinner. The café/gallery and health spaces will be indistinguishable from each other in design, look and feel with open plan access between the different areas.
A carefully specified professional kitchen, mood lighting, AV systems and a zoned audio system will further enhance the look, feel and functionality of the café and kitchen.
The intention is to create an actively curated mini gallery in the café, providing beautiful and thought-provoking art and fashion pieces created by local artists and designers, including work from the nearby Poplar Works fashion design initiative.
The cafe will be designed to be able to be used as a space for meetings and events. They will include hosting various health and wellness sessions for local people and volunteers together with NHS staff to build a powerful collective to support local people. Evenings will see the space utilised for various adult education classes and other wellness and community activities and form part of the WellOne Community Programme. When required, the whole space will be able to be transformed with dimmed lights and careful arts and music programming and showcase the best of East London artists.
The proposed WellOne Community Programme will initially seek to link with the café, available space in the ground floor of the Health Centre and the existing Aberfeldy Centre. Following completion, the Programme will expand to include the new Aberfeldy Community Centre.
The intention will be to grow the programme with a strategically phased approach with an emphasis on quality and engagement. Activities proposed include:
• Employment Support and Skills development
• Advice and guidance
• Apprenticeships and Enterprise development
• Talking therapies and mental health group sessions
• Sport, fitness and dance
• Children and young people
• Social networks and groups
• Complementary therapies and wellness activities (e.g. yoga, Tai Chi, reflexology)
• An LGBT parent’s group
• A gardening group
• Workplace club with creche
In the March pre-grants scrutiny meeting with the Mayor the following questions were raised, and after careful consideration and in partnership with Poplar Harca, we provide the following updates:
1. What scrutiny has this PID been subjected to?
a. This proposal has been endorsed by:
i. Aberfeldy Programme working group (external partnership[1])
ii. Health, Adults and Community Capital Delivery Group (internal)
iii. Asset Management & Capital Delivery Working Group (internal)
iv. Asset Management Delivery Board (internal)
2. Clarification who owns the Assets?
a. Poplar Harca is purchasing the freehold lease of the health centre, community hub and café and therefore all will be owned by Poplar Harca over the term lease of 150 years.
b. GPs will hold a sub-lease with Poplar Harca on the health care space
c. Specifically for the café space, Poplar Harca have offered a partnership agreement with the Council to secure the use of this space over a period of c10 years – this proposal has been suggested to Legal services and at the point of writing I am waiting for clarification from legal about how best to proceed
3. Clarification on the protection of the space to be safeguarded as a community asset? for the Community :
a. As explained above, Poplar Harca have offered a partnership agreement with the Council to secure the use of the café space over a set term.
4. What health outcomes will be achieved through this initiative?
a. Please see logic model that focusses on outcomes that will be achieved following investing in the community café.
5. Can more information be provided on the background to s106?
a. The s106 for this proposal will be made up from health and community s106.
Following April’s pre-grants scrutiny meeting with the Mayor, legal advised to not proceed through the grants process without a partnership agreement and outline business plan in place.
Therefore, we are in the process of obtaining the relevant sign-off of an agreement between Poplar Harca and LBTH that secures use of this space as a healthy community asset for a minimum of 10 years.
This project proposes to grant fund £500k to Poplar Harca, as such and in adherence to the LBTH Grants programme, we propose to ratify this decision both with senior officials also through the Grants process, including scrutiny and sub-committee.
Decision type: Key
Reason Key: Expenditure or Savings of over £1 Million;
Decision status: Issue Closed in System
Wards affected: Blackwall & Cubitt Town; Lansbury; Poplar;
Notice of proposed decision first published: 13/03/2019
Decision due: 3 Jul 19 by Grants Determination (Cabinet) Sub-Committee
Department: Health, Adults and Community
Consultation process
Community Consultation
Poplar HARCA has been working in partnership with Tower Hamlets Clinical Commissioning Group (THCCG), the Aberfeldy Practice and the London Borough of Tower Hamlets (LBTH) for a number of years to realise the WellOne vision partnership with the community.
The community have been at the heart of the development of WellOne and the following reports published between 2015 – 2017 outlined key insights into establishing an integrated health and wellness centre. The reports are as follows:
1. Community Consultation on Health and Happiness (2017)
2. Community Consultation Report (2015)
3. Vision & Values Workshops (April 2015)
Service Integration
A workshop was held in November 2018 with commissioner and service leads from LBTH (social care, integrated commissioning and Public Health), THCCG, Poplar Harca and Aberfeldy practice to discuss opportunities for integration of primary care, social care, and community care services.
A BID and PID have been approved by the Asset Working Group and the funds are due to be approved at Cabinet in March under the emerging projects in the Capital Programme. Final PID sign-off will be approved at the Strategic Asset Board.