The National Library for Public Health will run its first Annual Evidence Update (AEU) on drugs misuse from 8 June 2009. The theme for this first update is drugs misuse treatment in offender populations. We have teamed up with experts from the Addictions Centre based at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London to evaluate the evidence and put it into context. The AEU runs in conjunction with the Home Office Drugs Week.

Read the June bulletin here

For further details download this poster National Falls Awareness Day

Please come and meet the team and celebrate the opening of the new and improved SMART service at our launch in June.

SMART - (Substance Misuse Awareness Raising and Treatment) has moved to new premises and grown in size to improve service delivery to young people in Gateshead.

We are holding two informative and fun open days. You will have the chance to learn more about our service, meet the team, see how we work with young people and the resources we use, and be able to network with colleagues as you enjoy light refreshments and a drink from our SMART non - alcoholic cocktail bar!

GATESHEAD THUNDER WILL BE HERE TO OFFICIALLY OPEN PROCEEDINGS ON JUNE 11TH 10am.

Please let us know the day and session you would like to come to.

If you think appropriate please pass this invite onto other interested parties. Look forward to seeing you in June....

How to Publish to Your Weblog.pdf (pdf 0.2MB)

We would like to invite you to a briefing session being held on Wednesday 10th June at the Quality Hotel, Boldon starting at 12 noon until 1.30pm. Lunch will be provided. This session will be an opportunity for you to find out about the background to this year's campaign, and will enable you to liase with colleagues and other interested individuals/organisations in your area.

This year we have arranged to have the briefing session much earlier in the year, to enable you to start planning your activities and events now. We hope this will also assist you in getting any support you need, and will ensure a well coordinated approach in Gateshead, South Tyneside and Sunderland. It will also be an opportunity for you to give your views and help shape this year's plan of activities etc.

Please note lunch will be provided 12 noon until 12.30 pm, the briefing session will begin after this.
If you would like to come along please contact the:-
Public Health Improvement Information Team on 283 1124 / 283 1125 / 283 1126
to book a place.
or email healthinfo@sotw.nhs.uk

• The North East is home to 12 of the top 20 areas for binge drinking in England
• Alcohol misuse costs the region more than £1billion a year
• The North East has the second highest number of incapacity benefit claimants in England due to alcohol
• It has the highest number of teenage conceptions
• 46% of all crime is alcohol related
• We have some of the highest rates of alcohol-related hospital admissions in the country.

To do this successfully we need your help.

To give you a flavour of Balance's aims and to identify how we can work in partnership to start a regional debate on alcohol, we would like to invite you to join us at one of our exclusive preview events taking place in June 2009.

Limits Newsletter April 2009, PDF, 608KB

The Oral Health Team is holding events over the next few weeks to promote National Smile Month 17th May - 16th June 2009. Promotional events have been organised at 4 locations at Gateshead College and City of Sunderland College where the Oral Health Team will be distributing toothbrushes, toothpaste, leaflets and lots of oral health related information.

• Monday 18th May - Shiney Row College, Sunderland
• Thursday 21st May - Stadium Campus, Gateshead College
• Monday 1st June - Baltic Campus, Gateshead College
• Tuesday 2nd June - Hylton College, Sunderland

Read the May bulletin here

The Cochrane Health Equity Field is part of the Cochrane Collaboration.
The Cochrane Collaboration's purpose is to ensure that relevant, accurate, and current research about health interventions is available worldwide. Cochrane contributors conduct and distribute systematic reviews (available full-text in the Cochrane Library via NHS Evidence national library for health).

The Cochrane Health Equity Field encourages authors of both Campbell and Cochrane reviews to include explicit descriptions of the effect of the interventions not only on the whole population but to describe their effect upon the disadvantaged and/or their ability to reduce socio-economic inequalities in health and to promote their use to the wider community.

For more information on the Field, the Cochrane Collaboration or the Campbell Collaboration, visit the Cochrane Health Equity Field website.

Archived newsletters are now at:
http://www.library.nhs.uk/publichealth/page.aspx?pagename=NEWSLETTER

"Flu viruses can live for hours on hard surfaces such as telephone buttons and hand sets. The best way to protect your health is to wash your hands regularly." "Catch it in a clean tissue, Bin it and Kill it by washing your hands as soon as you can. Catch it, Bin it, Kill it."

Households across the UK will soon be receiving a Swine Flu Information leaflet. This leaflet includes information about what swine flu is and how it could spread, what UK governments have done to prepare for a wider outbreak of flu, how you can protect yourself against flu and what to do if you have flu symptoms. To read the leaflet, please click on the link below.

Department of Health Swine Flu Leaflet 119KB, PDF

'How can it help the Health Trainer engage individuals who may not access the service using our existing tools and pathways?'

Currently we use our personal health check tool (PHC) to engage individuals, helping them to self assess lifestyle and wellbeing. The PHC is generally conducted on a second or third contact visit by a client. First contacts are frequently used to establish trust with the Health Trainer and when this is in place, clients are then asked if they wish to take a more detailed look at their lifestyle.

Workforce
We have train 4 HT's to use the mid LifeCheck internet site to enable them to provide support and guidance to users over the duration of the pilot programme. The team will integrate the piloting of the programme on Thursdays for 12 weeks.

Location
We have selected the East of Gateshead to pilot the LifeCheck. Leam Lane and Felling are both areas of significant deprivation, however, there are a number of modern new housing conurbations cutting through parts of the older established housing stock. In addition, there are a number of small shops scattered amongst the housing, with a main shopping precinct hosting approximately 40 stores, public buildings and services. Regular bus services from Leam Lane and Felling also go directly to Gateshead Town Centre.

Signing people up to test Mid LifeCheck!
A3 posters, leaflets and postcards will carry details of our Health Trainers to enable individual to telephone them to book an appointment to try out the Mid LifeCheck. Venues we are hosting test site in will be briefed on how staff can signpost to our Health Trainers throughout the course of the pilot programmes.

Leaflet drop and street work
The streets identified in the Leam Lane and Felling area will receive an individual leaflet through their door. Street work/canvassing will feature on the occasions we leaflet the streets to scope potential users who maybe out shopping, walking their dog, on route to appointments or at bus stops.

Library work
Alongside the face to face contact with users of the library service in the chosen locality we propose to run a feature on the Gateshead Library ASAP site raising awareness of the pilot and inviting self users to log on. Information posted on the Health Trainer discussion forum has been successful in the past with 300 people viewing the site every month.

Appointments to meet our Health Trainer
We aim to identify people who we have 'gained' through the use of the Mid LifeCheck. On the registration form we include the question have you heard of the Health Trainer service. This will give an indication of if the person in a new contact.

Outcomes in the first 9 weeks of the pilot

Reporting our outcome 2/3rds in to the pilot has shown 22 people completed a midlife check using the laptops and 1 person who is completing on line, we have held 5 sessions.

As stated in the guidelines we allow the client to complete the LifeCheck on their own, only giving assistance if required, the client then takes the printout away with them.

Clients are advised that if they wish to discuss anything that is highlighted in their LifeCheck then they are free to do so at any time. Most of the clients do discuss highlighted points from their LifeCheck.

Case study outcomes

1 female client was identified as not having had a smear test or a mammogram within the relevant timescale, asked if she wanted to discuss this, she did, and it was because she was scared of going to the GP's to sort this out as she had other concerns. The male HT doing the LifeCheck was able to refer her to a female colleague and the situation was resolved with future contact with HT to make appointment at GP.

1 Female client completed LifeCheck which identified that smoking issues where her concern. Client wished to stop smoking and asked if she could bring partner to next advertised session as they wished to stop as well. Both attended next session and have set quit date using NRT and HT smoking cessation programme.

An evaluation by The People Partnership will be carried out near the end of the pilot programme. Additional inforamtion can be acquired by contacting Maria Taubman: mariataubman@sotw.nhs.uk