The Healthy Communities Collaborative seeks to bring improvement in the health of local people, increase partnership working, build social capital and develop an awareness of the potential for community action. In 2002, five teams were established, each based in a specific village or local area of Gateshead. Initially, the focus of the teams’ work was “Preventing Falls in Older People� and the teams comprised older residents, carers and health, social care and voluntary sector staff. Subsequently, three further teams have been added and a second topic, “Improving Access to a Healthy and Affordable diet�, working across all age groups, has been included.
Overview
Gateshead Healthy Communities Collaborative began in 2002 as a government pilot project managed by the National Primary Care Development Team (now the Improvement Foundation) as an initiative to tackle particular aspects of health inequalities/differences. Teams from Gateshead, Easington, (Co Durham) and Northampton were involved in the first wave of the collaborative.
The pilot phase is now finished and received a positive evaluation. The collective project won the “Reducing Health Inequalities� category of the 2003 Health Service Journal awards. Following the pilot phase, we now receive local Neighbourhood Renewal Funding to continue the collaborative in Gateshead and the Improvement Foundation has established a further 7 sites across the country and has ongoing funding for additional waves of the Healthy Communities Collaboratives over the next few years.
How it works
The Collaborative process is a tried and tested method which can be applied to a range of management challenges and has been used extensively as a system for improving healthcare world wide.
The Healthy Communities Collaborative seeks to bring improvement in the health of local people, increase partnership working, build social capital and develop and awareness of the potential for community action. Initially, the focus of the teams’ work was “Preventing Falls in Older People� and hence the five original teams in villages/local areas, comprised mainly older residents, carers, frontline health, social care and voluntary sector staff including wardens of sheltered housing, home care, lunch clubs, GP surgeries, Falls Team based at the local hospital etc.
Subsequently, three further teams have been added and a second topic “Improving Access to a Healthy and Affordable diet� working across all age groups has been included.
Team members learn about the importance of the health topic and attend learning workshops where they find out about new approaches and successes from around the country. In addition they learn how to bring about change using improvement methodology. In their local areas, they identify problems and test out potential improvements based on small sequential steps. When successful strands of work have been identified, these can be rapidly spread to other teams who may then adapt/adopt the work for their area, if relevant.
The eight teams are supported by a Project Manager, based within the Public Health Directorate, Gateshead PCT and a Steering Group of senior managers representing the range of departments and organisations who give strategic direction and support the teams to overcome any problems or barriers.
Examples of work
Falls prevention
• Improvements to footpaths and pavements
• Removing grass cuttings from paths to stop wet grass becoming slippery
• Development and promotion of the “Message in a Bottle� pots.
• Promoting top tips and advice which people can adopt to reduce their risk of falling over
• Promoting specialist services for people who are at risk of falls.
• Developing “Safety Works� as a venue for use by older people. The session includes informative advice given in a friendly interactive atmosphere on fall prevention, home safety, road safety, crime prevention, fire prevention and what to do if a fire breaks out, dealing with nuisance callers at home and by phone, consumer rights
Healthy eating
• Supporting groups such as after school clubs, youth clubs etc to provide opportunities to eat fruit and vegetables and reduce sales of confectionery
• Supporting housing schemes for older people to establish lunch clubs
• Establishing supported lunch clubs for older people with mental health issues.
• Promoting healthy eating options to a range of groups.
• Short course in healthy eating/activities such as “Fit to Feast� a five week course of exercise (often chair based) that people can continue at home and healthy eating advice
• One day sessions to get a range of messages over (topics may depend on the target audience e.g. Café Italiano for older people, which incorporates falls prevention advice, benefits advice, healthy eating advice, lunch and entertainment with an Italian theme. As this worked well a Children’s Centre recognised that is could be useful way of getting health messages to families and hence “Little Italy� has been planned.
• Men’s healthy eating group in Springwell
• Families for five a day - cooking demonstration and healthy eating advice in communities.
Links
www.improvementfoundation.org see topics -reducing falls and healthy diet
For further details contact:
Maggie Woodward, Project Manager, Gateshead Healthy Communities Collaborative
Email:- maggie.woodward@ghpct.nhs.uk
Tel 0191 497 1540