OHL SAFE HUB

One Health Lewisham              

One Health Lewisham, in collaboration with Doctors of the World UK and the Lewisham Food banks, has developed ‘safe hubs’ to support both local communities and GP practices help the most vulnerable in society.

 

Initially, there will be one ‘safe hub’ in each neighbourhood in Lewisham. These will:

  • be drop off points and information about food banks
  • have local information on community organisations which may support patients (and supports GPs with social prescribing).
  • provide central access for certain patients to use as an address to register with a local GP
  • provide central access for these patients to collect any correspondence from the GP or hospital

NB the patient will still be registered at their initial practice of their choice – the safe hub address should only be used where no suitable alternative can be found, to enable patients to register and access primary care.

 

Who can register using safe hub?

Anyone who says they are staying within the practice boundaries, who may not have proof of address or are fearful of sharing their address with your practice.

Please encourage and welcome patients to register at your practice. Some practices use their own address or a local community organisation to register patients without proof of address. The safe hub provides a possible address for patients to use should there be no alternative.

If someone wants to register at the GP practice using safe hub, please fill in the safe hub registration form and email: community@onehealthlewisham.co.uk

Any correspondence from the GP and / or hospital can then be sent to the safe hub address. The patient can pick this up, showing some form of ID, within practice opening hours (0800-1830 Monday to Friday). This post should not be opened by the safe hub practice.

However, any patient can access the community support information from the local safe hubs

 

Launch and future development

We will initially be launching the safe hub for practices in neighbourhood 3, before spreading to the rest of Lewisham.

There is close working key local partner organisations to continue to build on and improve social prescribing locally.

 

DOTW Safe Surgeries Resources

Social prescribing, posters and toolkit – click here

Online tool for migrant health from DOTW – click here