The voluntary and community sector is large and diverse. Itincludes the big household name charities, as well as the smallest, oftenunregistered, voluntary and community groups. These groups could be describedas the ‘microbiome’ of the sector – they are essential to community health andwellbeing, just as the human microbiome is essential to our individual health. However,the voluntary sector microbiome often goes unseen and unrecognised, despiteplaying an essential role in communities.
The voluntary sector microbiome is the small-scale voluntaryorganisations delivering community activities such as hobby groups, localgardening clubs or coffee mornings – and there are lots of them. In partnershipwith the University of Exeter, we have estimated that in England there could be335,000 unregistered voluntary and community groups, in addition to 132,000registered charities and 30,000 social enterprises. So, why is this important?
Integration and localisation of service delivery,particularly within health and care services, depends on collaboration betweenhealth and social care providers, local authorities and the voluntary sector. Increasingly,policy makers, health and care commissioners, and integrated care boards try touse systems thinking: an approach which avoids isolating a problem to just onefactor, and instead understands it as the outcome of many factors. If we’regoing to embrace systems thinking, we need to be as attentive to the smallestparts of the system – the microbiome (hard to see but essential) – as we are tothe largest.
As health problems and inequalities are often the outcome ofmany factors, the entire system must work together to address them. Policy makers,commissioners, and system leaders must explicitly recognise, support, andamplify the role of small, local, often unregistered community groups.
‘The Value of the Voluntary Sector Microbiome inIntegrated Care Systems’, explores this topic further.