Professor Mike Holmes, of Nimbuscare, reveals in his latest column for The Press that it has given out grants to 19 groups and organisations to help boost the mental health and emotional wellbeing of York people

"I’m incredibly proud of the fact that Nimbuscare has recently been able to allocate around some grant funding to 19 different community-based projects and organisations across the York that are carrying out wonderful work to enhance the mental health and emotional wellbeing of local people.

As a not-for-profit provider of primary care services, which is made up of 11 GP practices across York, we launched the Nimbuscare Community Fund earlier this year to enable us to invest back into the communities that we serve. We invited community groups and projects to apply for grants that met specific criteria aimed at improving the mental health and emotional wellbeing of local people. The Two Ridings Community Foundation, an independent charity, helped to asses the applications and allocate the funding on Nimbuscare’s behalf.

From the first round of funding available, grants have now been allocated to: Accessible Arts & Media; Big Futures Foundation; Haxby & Wigginton Seniors’ Social Group; Home-Start York; Kyra Women’s Project; Newton-Upon-Derwent Methodist Church & Community Centre; Open Country; Pocklington Rugby in the Community; Refugee Action York; Shine21; St Leonard’s Hospice; St Thomas’ Church; Talking About Loss; The Conservation Volunteers; Thrive Outside; Thunk-It Theatre Ltd; Tool Box Drama; York Neighbours; and the York Travellers Trust.

Refugee Action York, Kyra Women’s Project and York Travellers Trust are all using their funding for counselling and a therapy programme to build up resilience and support the emotional needs of York people. The funding awarded to Thrive Outside, Open Country and The Conservation Volunteers will be spent on outdoor projects to improve the health and wellbeing of local people.

We were absolutely thrilled by the number and quality of the applications that we received in response to our initial round of funding - they’re all incredibly deserving and making a tangible difference to local people of all ages. It’s wonderful to be able to support their good work and we look forward to helping even more fantastic local groups and projects with our Community Fund in the future.

Community groups, projects and charities that missed out this time around will soon be able to apply as part of Nimbuscare’s second round of grant funding allocations, details of which will be announced later this year.

Although we’re still vaccinating in excess of 100 people per day at the Askham Bar Community Care Centre (formerly known as York Vaccination Centre), we’ve also been out and about administering boosters to housebound patients across York.

In a three-week period, we administered more than 300 jabs to patients across the city and are now providing support in the Harrogate area to give housebound patients and care home residents their booster doses.

We’re also looking ahead and starting to make preparations for the autumn booster campaign after the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) announced last week that a Covid-19 vaccine should be offered to:

• residents in care homes (and staff)

• frontline health and social care workers

• all those aged 65 years and over

• adults aged 16 to 64 years who are in a clinical high risk group

We’ll share more information about our plans nearer the time."