Sortition: selecting Board members for @HWLeeds

As I announced last week, I’m going to be the Vice-Chairperson on the new Healthwatch Leeds Board. Our new chair, Linn Phipps, and myself will be the only appointed board members, ten more people will sit on our Board, and they will be appointed by sortition.

Continuing the conversation about how to ensure proper representation of the views of people in Leeds on the new Healthwatch Leeds Board, I thought I would blog about why I think sortition is the best method, and why we won’t be a membership organisation.

Sortition: what is it?

Lots of people aren’t aware of what sortition means. It’s more usually called “drawing lots”, and it’s familiar to lots of us as the way we might make a decision in a small group “drawing the short straw”. In effect, we’re all used to sortition, as all the people who “play the lottery” are actually participating in sortition!

Sortition first  emerged in Athens, the birthplace of democracy, although we wouldn’t want to copy their model entirely, as they excluded all women and many men from their political process.

Power to the people

[The image above shows three men in ancient Greek dress who are holding placards that read "Power to the People!"]

Is sortition the fairest way to select for the Healthwatch Board?

The reason why I think sortition is a fair way to select people to represent views is accurately summarised by Oliver Dowlen in his article that is referenced in the Wikipedia definition of sortition:

Compared to a voting system – even one that is open to all citizens – a citizen-wide lottery scheme for public office lowers the threshold to office. This is because ordinary citizens do not have to compete against more powerful or influential adversaries in order to take office, and because the selection procedure does not favour those who have pre-existing advantages or connections – as invariably happens with election by preference. From an organisational point of view a citizen-wide lottery system gives all citizens an equal stake in the office in question and so defines the size of the active (or potentially active) citizen body

What this means is that by selecting our Board membership by sortition, everyone who puts themselves forward as a volunteer and potential Board member has an equal chance of selection. We don’t think that previous management experience, the number of non-executive directorships held, or our political affiliations are the most important qualities for our Board. What is necessary is that we are all engaged citizens who believe they have something to contribute about health and social care services.

Criticisms of sortition

One of the criticisms of sortition is that there may be some qualities that are necessary pre-conditions for people charged with making decisions, and sortition doesn’t favour anyones experiences over anyone elses. We disagree with this. We will be a fully inclusive organisation, and we will provide all the training and support to our Board to enable their participation: we believe that their lived experiences of using services, or caring for people who use services is far more important to or organisation than any previous Board level experience.

Is Healthwatch Leeds going to be a membership organisation?

Healthwatch Leeds believes that in order to represent the views of all the people of Leeds, we have to ensure there as few barriers to participation as possible. We think that by introducing membership, we would be putting an unnecessary barrier in the way of people who want to participate.

We regard all the people in Leeds to be “members” of Healthwatch Leeds, simply because we all use the services of Leeds: we will represent all of them, not just people who sign up as “members”.

All of our consultation events and engagement efforts must include all the people of Leeds, and we’re going to think hard about how to include everyone in this process. We think that the best  way of ensuring that is to continue to ask people to get in touch and let the whole team know how best to go about meeting their needs.

What do you think about this? Are we demonstrating our values through this approach, or do you have a better idea?

Volunteering with @HWLeeds

A very exciting opportunity to volunteer with @HWLeeds is coming up in June: I’ll be blogging more about this nearer the time.

References

BBC History: Athenian Democracy http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/greeks/greekdemocracy_01.shtml

Dowlen, O. (2009), Sorting Out Sortition: A Perspective on the Random Selection of Political Officers. Political Studies, 57: 298–315. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2008.00746.x [Available online, Accessed 12/05/2013.] See: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.14679248.2008.00746.x/abstract;jsessionid=51BF09AE268C11E0E88D1C88E7951DBD.d03t01

Healthwatch Leeds: Our new Chair http://www.healthwatchleeds.co.uk/news/article/our-new-chair-linn-phipps

Healthwatch Leeds: Our new Vice-Chair http://www.healthwatchleeds.co.uk/news/article/healthwatch-leeds-appoints-claire-jones-vice-chair

Healthwatch Leeds: Our Values http://www.healthwatchleeds.co.uk/content/about

Volunteer with Healthwatch Leeds http://www.healthwatchleeds.co.uk/news/article/volunteering-opportunity

Wikipedia: Sortition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition

Appointment as Vice-Chair of Healthwatch Leeds

I’m delighted to announce that from May 2013, I will be working with Healthwatch Leeds as the Vice-Chairperson, under Linn Phipps, who is the appointed Chairperson.

I’m passionate about involving people, and so I was delighted to see that other Healthwatch organisations around the country have already started asking what involvement will mean for local Healthwatch organisations. The people of Dudley had an event this week where they asked that question, and they produced a fantastic graphic that sums up what involvement means:

Produced by @JennyD_ER at #hwDudley event

Thinking about what inclusion will mean for Healthwatch Leeds will be something I’m thinking about a lot over the next few weeks.

We will be appointing the rest of the Board of Healthwatch over the next few months, from the pool of people who come forward and offer their services as volunteers with the organisation. We aim to make volunteering with us a great learning experience, an opportunity to have real input into decisions in Leeds and it will be great fun, too!

If you feel this is something you’d like to do, please do get in touch with Healthwatch Leeds by emailing them at office@healthwatchleeds.co.uk, phone 0113 898 0035, or Tweet @HWLeeds for an initial chat.

#leadersforleeds- Civic leadership for our City

As many of my readers will know, I’m terrifically interested in what goes on in my City of Leeds. The event held at the Civic Hall to encourage civic leadership across the City was a great chance to meet with people doing interesting things- from small social enterprises and community groups to the CEOs of our major institutions.

Integrating Health and Social Care

I work constantly to attempt to influence health and social care organisations to work more innovatively and to offer a more integrated experience for people using the services. After all, who cares about whether a service they receive is delivered by a local Trust, by the Council, by the Voluntary sector or if it’s delivered within community groups or social enterprises? When experiencing services, what matters is the quality of the experience, not the organisational structure behind it. So I was pleased to be able to meet with so many others who were representing large and small organisations who work for social impact in the City.

Health Inequality=Social Inequality

Rob Webster, who is CEO of one of our Trusts and a great Twitter follow to boot described the situation perfectly;

“For every mile you walk from North West Leeds heading South, the life expectancy of the residents drops by a year. Residents in South Leeds live 10 fewer years than residents in North West Leeds.”

One of the challenges for people interested in healthcare is that so much about health outcomes doesn’t depend on health intervention AT ALL. I know this sounds a bit strange, but we know that social inequality, access to green space, whether or not a parent reads to you as a child, an countless other factors are really important for health (and life) outcomes. So actually, people who care about health care have a responsibility to act on social inequality and to improve health outcomes in this way. This is great because it means that the creative possibilities for collaboration are extended across sectors- whether it’s a youth project, a local church, a small business offering employment, or any number of other possibilities, we can collaborate to drive up health outcomes and reduce social inequality.

Digital Health Centre of Excellence

My goal is to ensure Leeds is seen as a centre of excellence in the development and delivery of digital health and digitally-enabled social care. Many people I met agreed that this forms part of our civic future, because the people of Leeds need to have efficient and effective services despite a financial environment that ensures we have to think radically different. Because people recognise that we have to work together to make an impact on this. Because it’s a great way to develop the City’s economic outlook and provide jobs. Because we have some of the best hospitals and health services in the country. Because we have all the structural advantage of the NHS Information Centre and the NHS Commissioning Board. Because it’s the right thing to do.

Recently, the local Shadow Health and Wellbeing Board have crowd-sourced information about how digital products and social media can support people in the city who  use health and social care services- expect to see more of this as we move forward.

We have a vibrant digital sector, both within health care and in other digital fields (did you know that Grand Theft Auto was written in Leeds?) We already have great initiatives such as GoOn Leeds, Leeds Social Media Surgeries (TONIGHT at the Civic Hall from 6pm, by the way!), and the fabulous Leeds Digital Festival. Let’s make it even better.

Digital Conference and Hack v2

I’m already working towards the Digital Centre of Excellence, as are many other people all over the city. This year, we held the first Digital Health Conference and Hack, and we’re planning another one for next April. This time, we’re going to look at open source solutions in healthcare, described today by Dick Vinegar as “the future of Health IT”. We already have the excellent open source portal developed at Leeds Teaching Hospital Trust by Tony Shannon- there’s a lot more we can do with this agenda.

We also have several totally original digitally enabled health innovations going on locally- and I can’t wait to share more details with you. We’re hoping you’ll join us.

How can the Health and Wellbeing Board in Leeds use Digital and Social Media? #sm4hwb

I was asked to gather a group of people together in Leeds, to talk with my local Health and Wellbeing Board (HWB) members about how digital and social media could help them support the population in meeting health outcomes.

Why did the Health and Wellbeing Board want to know how to use Social and Digital Media?

The Health and Wellbeing Board were making visits to many other areas of the sector such as the statutory sector and the voluntary sector, so they were interested in the voices of people with direct lived experience of services, or people offering innovative solutions in this space, whose voices might be drowned out by the big players in a shared event. I thought it was a great example of the local commissioning structure doing something a little bit different: looking past the structural advantages the big players have in terms of staffing, resources, funding etc towards more creative, innovative, bottom-up suggestions, ideas and products that can help our city meet commissioning needs after April next year when the change from PCT commissioning to CCG commissioning rolls out.

What happened?

I was able to get the wonderful people at Leeds Met Business Services to donate the space for the meeting (Thank you to Katie of QU2 and Old Broadcasting House who arranged this), and set up a free event on Eventbrite to handle the registration. Because of my experience in organising the Digital Health Conference and Hack in Leeds last June, I already had a great list of people who were interested and engaged with these issues, who represented a cross-section of our health and social care systems. I sent invites to all of the attendees and also Tweeted about the event, to ensure that people were aware of this opportunity and able to come.

We had a great response from people in Leeds, and it was a shame to dissuade people from further afield and from the statutory sector who were keen to come. I was sure they all had great insights to share, but that it was important to stick to the brief and to provide a small and safe group for people to express their thoughts without feeling intimidated by representatives from services that are still experienced by some people as oppressive.

Who came to the Consultation?

What immediately struck me was the combined expertise gathered in the room. Patients, social care users, carers, workers, business owners: many people with overlapping identities in several of these roles in our health and social care system. The people who came all had great insight to share with the local commissioners and were really grateful for the opportunity to put their views across. So often, I believe we can miss out on a lot of the social capital and insight of the population most impacted by our decisions, by making these decisions behind closed doors before running “engagement” events to communicate decisions already made. In the words of the disability movement, “Nothing about us, without us” should be the maxim when we’re looking at such incredible financial and cultural challenges as we are at the moment in health and social care.

Summarising the discussion that ranged over several hours would be very difficult to do, but we kept notes on our trusty Flipchart throughout the event, and I’m happy to share them now with you (and after receiving permission from the entire group to share our results in this way).

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Our observations

1. People with disabilities and long term conditions are already using digital and social media to support them and to help them maintain or improve their health (Malby and Mervyn, 2012). They are doing this independently and “under-the radar” of services, because services are not set up to accommodate or encourage this. The irony is that internet use is seen on care planning documentation throughout Leeds to be considered a luxury item, not an essential for planning care and accessing our community; this has to change for the planned changes to be possible.
2. People with disabilities and long term conditions are less likely to use the internet than other groups (Dutton and Blank, 2011). We suppose that part of this is due to a lack of appropriate training and access to computers, software, and smartphones that are appropriate to their needs. We would like to survey the populations of people receiving social care, carers, the socially isolated elderly etc. in Leeds, in order to target any interventions to this group.
3. We consider that building capacity within this population to use digital technology could be considered a priority area. Access to information and skills training sessions, through libraries, community groups, mobile libraries, and access to useful directories of apps and software, and information about how to access funding for computers and online access are identified as important ways to support the population of Leeds to utilise digital and social media solutions. Perhaps there is a partnership opportunity with community development work such as Go On Leeds, or the Leeds Social Media Surgeries, or community groups such as the LS14Trust who are all building capacity in this area.
4. We recognise the environmental barriers that exclude many of our citizens from taking part in this work. We advise ensuring any training solutions are available with good wheelchair access, are culturally appropriate, and include recommendations of software that can help with accessibility and language difficulties.
5. We recognise that many of our elderly relatives are excluded from digital and social media, although the over 55s is the fastest growing group using social media (Dutton and Blank 2011). When planning services to be digital by default, we must remember the digitally excluded through access, skills and through choice. We want to consider social and digital solutions that don’t require computer skills training as part of the mix. An excellent example is Mindings, which can run on cheap android tablets and connect people to their family and friends, without them being required to “click anything”!
6. Broadly, we feel the definitions of telehealth and telecare currently in use are too narrow and don’t consider the contribution that disruptive technologies such as digital and social media can play. We believe that solutions incorporating these tools should be recommended alongside what we understand as telecare and telehealth solutions. There may be a training issue for customer facing roles in health and social care services, who may not be equipped to offer the advice that users and carers want. We believe that this should be integrated into the suite of services offered by the planned Assistive Technology Hub in Leeds.
7. Some of the digital and social media tools and technologies may be far cheaper to implement than traditional telecare, and may be preferable as non-stigmatising, non-medical pieces of equipment (e.g. smartphones and tablet computers running useful apps).
8. The outcomes that we expect to be able to measure to create a sense of the impact of the use of digital and social media solutions include length of hospital stay, number of face-to-face appointments, earlier discharge, better self-management of long term conditions, and patient reported social isolation and quality of life measures. We could also look at measuring for any improvement in the issues identified in the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment for the priority areas for the city.
9. We know from work that has been done on innovations like the Big White Wall that significant savings can be expected of digital services supplementing face-to-face treatment. Data from the Big White Wall shows that they saved £370000 for 100 users of the service (Kunzmann, Wong and Hart 2011).
10. Anecdotal evidence of local initiatives such as the Leeds Wellbeing Web shows that people find it a useful medium to discuss what influences their wellbeing, and also is a medium through which to learn the digital literacy skills we already identified as important.
11. We understand the process of “risk stratification” could be used as a framework to identify priority areas to consider digital and social media interventions within the city, supporting self-management of long term conditions such as obesity and diabetes.
12. We would like to contribute to the new integrated Health and Social Care Informatics Board, set up to support commissioning decisions, which we believe might be unaware of many useful digital and social media interventions available on the open market from microproviders and small and medium sized businesses.
13. Useful work has already been started to develop apps, e.g. to support people with personal budgets to manage their care rotas- see MyCareTracker, given as an example given by our group.

The Grabchat

Involved …

Top resources …

http://twitter.com/GoltonStewart/status/256772638410670080/photo/1
http://Mycaretracker.co.uk
http://handihealth.org
http://tapcare.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/making-tapcare-clock.html
http://www.usefulapps.org.uk/
http://en.wordpress.com/typo/?subdomain=leedswellweb
http://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/blog/should-clinical-commissioning-groups-invest-telehealth
http://healthandcare.dh.gov.uk/hwb-guide/
http://twitter.com/claireOT/statuses/257711536074797057

Related tags …

#leeds #unfold #digihealthcon #ln #disruption

See Twitter for more tweets, people, videos and photos for #sm4hwb

@claireOT	@dominiccampbell  will be recommending to HWB today that they support it in  #Leeds   #sm4hwb (Fri, 12 Oct 2012 07:42:20 +0100)
@claireOT	Exciting day today- im off to Medipex, hosting this morning, hosting  #sm4hwb  this afternoon.(Fri, 12 Oct 2012 08:29:41 +0100)
@Acuity_Design	# digital health event is  #sm4hwb (Fri, 12 Oct 2012 14:47:53 +0100)
@Lucinday	Myself, Andy Harris and  @goltonstewart  attending a session to discuss how social media can be used for health.  #sm4hwb (Fri, 12 Oct 2012 14:51:47 +0100)
@Lucinday	Interesting to hear about how the Mindings app can be used to support people with dementia to live at home for longer.  #sm4hwb (Fri, 12 Oct 2012 15:09:15 +0100)
@Acuity_Design	#sm4hwb  issue not app but usability sometimes.   http://t.co/wvcfJ5VN   #tapcare (Fri, 12 Oct 2012 15:12:07 +0100)
@MindingsStu	RT  @Lucinday : Interesting to hear about how the Mindings app can be used to support people with dementia to live at home for longer.  #sm4hwb (Fri, 12 Oct 2012 15:18:39 +0100)
@desktopcarl	RT  @Lucinday : Interesting to hear about how the Mindings app can be used to support people with dementia to live at home for longer.  #sm4hwb (Fri, 12 Oct 2012 15:19:17 +0100)
@Acuity_Design	#sm4hwb  user organised  #socialcare  means inherently ppl won’t turn up in official stats as they bypass systems.  #disruption (Fri, 12 Oct 2012 15:23:20 +0100)
@ronstrong	At  #sm4hwb  meeting health and welfare board for Leeds talking about digital health and social media(Fri, 12 Oct 2012 15:24:24 +0100)
@Acuity_Design	#sm4hwb  provider bias tries so many ways to sound open and helpful. Professionals can’t help it. That’s why reversal of control stuck.(Fri, 12 Oct 2012 15:37:10 +0100)
@Acuity_Design	#sm4hwb   http://t.co/JLuKZcyg   http://t.co/wDvWRmpy  robmoriarty  http://t.co/nD7aR3hU   http://t.co/hZREjMO1 (Fri, 12 Oct 2012 15:59:50 +0100)
@GoltonStewart	Fantastic afternoon talking technology with the experts in health. Brain fried now  #sm4hwb   @claireot   http://t.co/hQMLEDxF (Fri, 12 Oct 2012 16:05:42 +0100)
@CIHM_Becky	RT  @GoltonStewart : Fantastic afternoon talking technology with the experts in health. Brain fried now  #sm4hwb   @claireot   http://t.co/hQMLEDxF (Fri, 12 Oct 2012 16:28:42 +0100)
@CIHM_Becky	So look forward to hearing how ideas from  #sm4hwb  will translate into strategy that allows soc med to thrive(Fri, 12 Oct 2012 16:30:19 +0100)
@claireOT	Wow! Great information and ideas shared withHWB today- we have such great resources in  #Leeds   #sm4hwb (Fri, 12 Oct 2012 17:08:05 +0100)
@claireOT	#sm4hwb  tweets and blogposts and  photos to follow! thanks to Andy Harris,  @Lucinday  and  @GoltonStewart  for listening so attentively(Fri, 12 Oct 2012 17:13:01 +0100)
@claireOT	RT  @GoltonStewart : Fantastic afternoon talking technology with the experts in health. Brain fried now  #sm4hwb   @claireot   http://t.co/hQMLEDxF (Fri, 12 Oct 2012 17:14:23 +0100)
@shirleyayres	@GoltonStewart   @claireOT  love the photo from  #sm4hwb !  http://t.co/BkDkDdZZ (Fri, 12 Oct 2012 17:28:25 +0100)
@claireOT	@CIHM_Becky  was a great day- I have high hopes for some innovative commissioning as a result, great for the whole team in  #Leeds   #sm4hwb (Fri, 12 Oct 2012 17:47:09 +0100)
@claireOT	@shirleyayres  you would have loved it- such expertise in the room, great solutions generated  #sm4hwb    @goltonstewart (Fri, 12 Oct 2012 17:48:08 +0100)
@claireOT	@shirleyayres  discovered an integrated health and social care informatics board at CCG level, want in on that!  #sm4hwb   @goltonstewart (Fri, 12 Oct 2012 17:49:27 +0100)
@Gemma_Finnegan	RT  @claireOT :  @shirleyayres  discovered an integrated health and social care informatics board at CCG level, want in on that!  #sm4hwb   @goltonstewart (Fri, 12 Oct 2012 17:51:43 +0100)
@nhsleeds	great to finally meet  @claireOT  brill discussion on how social/digital media can support health & wellbeing board  #sm4hwb  lots of enthusiasm(Fri, 12 Oct 2012 18:32:35 +0100)
@Lucinday	RT  @GoltonStewart : Fantastic afternoon talking technology with the experts in health. Brain fried now  #sm4hwb   @claireot   http://t.co/hQMLEDxF (Fri, 12 Oct 2012 21:22:48 +0100)
@claireOT	? @RobKTurnbull : Should clinical commissioning groups invest in  #telehealth ? | The Nuffield Trust  http://t.co/RxiCPvfT   #ln ?  #sm4hwb (Sat, 13 Oct 2012 08:48:51 +0100)
@claireOT	@leedswellweb  we gave your project a big shout out at  #sm4hwb  yesterday  @gillvolition   @victoriabetton   @connect (Sat, 13 Oct 2012 16:57:20 +0100)
@claireOT	? @legalaware : This is a short guide to Health and Wellbeing Boards, by the way.  http://t.co/N6IIwVQ6?  via  @living_as_if  fao  #sm4hwb (Sat, 13 Oct 2012 16:58:10 +0100)
@johncbaron	RT  @claireOT :  @leedswellweb  we gave your project a big shout out at  #sm4hwb  yesterday  @gillvolition   @victoriabetton   @connect (Sat, 13 Oct 2012 17:33:58 +0100)
@claireOT	@eclectictaste18  is Rob on here? I want to link him up with a few great Social Care contacts to promote MyCareTracker?  #sm4hwb (Sun, 14 Oct 2012 08:05:20 +0100)
@claireOT	@eclectictaste18   @robmoriarty   @mycaretracker  thanks! Rob, meet  @shirleyayres  and  @mindingsstu , great contacts for you  #sm4hwb (Sun, 14 Oct 2012 09:52:30 +0100)
@claireOT	@CIHM_Becky  oh, let me know if you hear any thoughts re  #sm4hwb  I’m just blogging it on a train, now!  @robwebster_lch (Mon, 15 Oct 2012 06:16:32 +0100)
@iksan_an	http://t.co/RNgngcfq  RT  @claireOT   @CIHM_Becky  oh, let me know if you hear any thoughts re  #sm4hwb  I’m just blogging it on a train, now! @…(Mon, 15 Oct 2012 06:51:52 +0100)
@claireOT	@shirleyayres   @anniecoops  listened to great presentation from  @DrThom  yesterday- great online solution to LTC management  #sm4hwb (Tue, 16 Oct 2012 09:04:23 +0100)
@claireOT	? @culturevultures : Digital a very strong asset  #unfold ? < #leeds  leading the way with  #digihealthcon  and  #sm4hwb  health/digital mashups(Thu, 18 Oct 2012 09:56:13 +0100)

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References:

Dutton, W.H., Blank, G. (2011) Next Generation Users: The Internet in Britain. Oxford Internet Survey 2011. Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. [Available at http://microsites.oii.ox.ac.uk/oxis/ accessed on 19th October at 18.30]

Kunzmann, R., Wong A.,  Hart B. (2011) Joining in the Conversation: Social Media and Mental Health Services. NHS Confederation [Avaliable at http://www.nhsconfed.org/Publications/Documents/Joining_the_conversation_161111.pdf Accessed on 18th October at 18.42]

Malby B, Mervyn. (2012) Social Networks: An Additional Brief Literature Review for The Health Foundation. Centre for Innovation in Health Management, Leeds University.

Resources Shared:

Casserole Club

• Casserole Club is a great startup that links people in communities who prepare fresh meals with people who live nearby that would appreciate a homemade hot meal.

Centre for Independent Living

• Centre for Independent Living (CIL): offering help with financial independence and the process of managing personal budgets in social care.

Digital Health Conference and Hack

• Leeds hosted the first system-wide intervention into health and social care, looking at the uses of digital and social media technology to support the people of Leeds

Expert Patient Programme

• The Leeds Expert Patient Programme: promoting excellent self-management of long term conditions, but currently with no digital and social media element- this would be great to see happen.

Free to Live

• Free to Live: offering peer support to people in Leeds

GoodGym

• GoodGym: a great start-up that motivates runners to go out on a weekly run to see their “coach”- a socially isolated individual that lives nearby. The runner then helps with jobs that need doing like sweeping a path and bringing a pint of milk. Groups of runners can be recruited by community groups to work on projects local to them, such as clearing a canal, or litter picking.

Go On Leeds

• Initiative to promote Digital Inclusion in Leeds

HANDI Healthcare 

• HANDI Healthcare app development and support. Soon to launch a directory of useful and recommended apps.

Leeds Directory 

• The Leeds Directory: a list of all checked and vetted providers of domestic, personal care and trade services. All our information is available online or by phone/post via our Helpline number. We have several other features on our website, including our Activity Calendar to find what events/activities are going on across Leeds.

Leeds Social Media Surgeries

• Great format for voluntary and community groups to access expertise donated by social media experts (surgeons) in order to explore how digital and social media tools could help them.
• **Leeds Social Media Surgeries are currently searching for a new venue, must be central to Leeds and must have Wi-Fi**

Leeds Wellbeing Web 

• leedswellbeingweb.wordpress.com: a group blog discussing how to stay mentally healthy in Leeds.

LS14Trust

• Great community development Trust offering a Digital Lounge for residents of LS14 to get online and promote digital literacy.

Mindings

• Mindings: a great app that enables the connections of people on social media to be shared with friends and relatives who are not connected with social media. Also has elements of self-care, like being informed when a relative has put on their kettle, i.e. is up and about.

My Care Tracker 

• Mycaretracker- an app that helps with care scheduling for people with personal budgets who act as employers and managers of their own care teams. Also provides webinar training to organisations and individuals.

Rally Round

• Rally Round: an application that enables people to share the tasks that need doing with family and friends to enable faster integration of health and social care.

Recovery4.Me

• No live link as yet- my (ClaireOT’s) new digital mental health service  enabling people to recover an ordinary life after an episode of mental distress.

Tapcare

• Tapcare.blogspot.co.uk: a great resource that simplifies the process of keeping track of carers and has many other applications.

UsefulApps

• Usefulapps.com- a planned suite of apps for service users to manage compliance, keep reminders etc.

Spartacus Forum

• We Are Spartacus and the Spartacus Forum, great supportive spaces for people with disabilities to offer and receive support to others in the same position. Also the Spartiquilt project in Leeds, where we are attempting to create a narrative quilt contemporary disability movement quilt.

Edit: updated information for the Leeds Directory as per the comment left by Lisa Stones below.