London Co-production Network visit the Lambeth GP Food Co-op

[Sarah Lyall]

The Lambeth GP Food Co-op is a cooperative of patients, doctors, nurses and Lambeth residents who work together to grow food. It is funded by Lambeth Council and NHS Lambeth Clinical Commissioning Group. The Co-op began in March 2013, building gardens inside GP surgeries which are designed to enable patients and others to learn how to grow food in a safe and secure environment. They are now working with 10 GP surgeries across the Borough, with new surgeries set to join in 2015/16. The Co-op contributes to putting co-production into action and aims, over time, to improve the health and well-being of participants and the wider community.

On Tuesday 25 November, a group from the London Co-production Network visited Lambeth Group Practice in Lambeth North to understand how the GP Food Co-op operates. We were shown round the gardens which were set up in previously dead space, in an alley at the side of the GP surgery. Large planters had been used to grow courgettes, strawberries, tomatoes, potatoes and more.
The planters are made in Brixton as part of the Cooperative by young people, who later visited to take selfies of themselves with the vegetables. In this densely populated area, few people have gardens, but anyone attending the GP surgery can become involved in food growing.

“The project provides a safe and familiar space, a GP surgery, for patients to lean how to grow food at their own pace and in a friendly supportive environment.” – Ed Rosen

Four key objectives underpin the project:

• To transform space in modest and incremental ways in order to create community assets;
• To encourage GP surgeries to change their model so that it becomes more forward looking and sustainable, particularly in the way they support people with long-term health conditions.
• To engage local people in activity, using a social rather than a medical model of health. Over time people’s expectations of the GP surgery can change, as surgeries become more open as community spaces.
• To support self-management and self-care, linked to social prescribing. People take more of a role in their own health and also share expertise with others in a model of active citizenship.

The project can help address isolation, loneliness, and support people to manage long term health conditions. They are also tracking the numbers of people in the Borough admitted to hospital with malnutrition and using food-banks with the aim of helping to reduce these numbers.

"I suffer from white coat syndrome, my blood pressure goes up when I see a doctor. From childhood I've been afraid of going to the doctor, but this helped me a lot." ­­– Lambeth GP Food Co-op Member

Part of Lambeth GP Food Co-op’s longer term vision is to generate enough produce to be able to sell to large local hospitals like St Thomas and Guy’s Hospital. Of the 60 hospitals in London, not one buys produce that is grown locally. This will need to change if the NHS is to meet its sustainability targets. The Co-op is therefore calling for a whole-borough approach to food supply chains. They will be part of the NHS sustainability roadshow in March 2015.

Lambeth GP Food Co-op’s advice for spreading the model is two-fold. First to find allies in general practice. This is crucial as GPs run as small businesses and need to buy into the concept. Second, realise that setting up through co-production does not necessarily require lots of financial resource, but it does require relationship. The Co-ops relationships with the NHS Trust, Lambeth Council and NHS Lambeth Clinical Commissioning Group have been especially important.

You can contact the Lambeth GP Food Co-op on [e-mail] and on Twitter @GPFoodCoop.

 

The London Co-production Network meets for regular networking and action learning sessions. As we run without funding, we rely on the generosity of our members in providing venues free of charge. Please get in touch with us if you would like to present to the network, host a site visit, or offer a venue. Email Adrian Bua on [e-mail].