Wouldn't it be amazing to see health and care without boundaries the NHS working
with local authorities for the benefit of the local population
now that would change everything
District councils aren't funded for
Public Health but they do provide a range of services which are absolutely
critical to people's health for example housing environmental health
leisure critically planning and the management of own spaces. This project
came out of a conversation I had with the GP that got me thinking about issues
that the district council could help with. We brought in a health coach
We jointly funded that position along
with the GP surgery and
also our leisure providers Freedom Leisure.
Alan and I retired 20 years ago
We had a really good 20 years of healthy smashing times
We were very lucky
Things began to change when we both got to our middle 70s Alan had the beginnings of
dementia. Unfortunately he did succumb to that rather nasty disease, and I found
myself without him after 53 years of marriage which - not good.
Music had been my life
ln the weeks following Alan's death I gave away all my music
I was isolating myself
The doctor said would you be prepared to
see a health coach
Angela is typically the type of patient we get in the Health
Centre we have a rural population a lot of our elderly patients live on farms
which can be very isolated they very often have a significant number of long term
medical conditions 20% of patients make up close to 80% to the workload a lot of
their issues can be dealt with very ably by a lot of our community partners
The reason this is different from other health coaching is because it is direct
referral from doctors so they're sending me their patients because they clearly
want me to see them it might be people who've had stroke it could be people who
are recovering from cancer it could be people who again are just socially
isolated. By actually putting them in walking groups it teaches them to start
to enjoy walking again and obviously increasing benefits of cardiovascular
system improving mood and well-being helping to reduce anxiety and depression
and also they can meet people
During the course of seeing the health coach I
discovered that there was a choir starting up and to my absolute amazement
I enjoyed it
When you sing you have to breathe so when you're breathing you're
helping your diaphragm people who have pulmonary conditions particularly it's
beneficial because it helps them breathe more evenly
We're giving people the
tools the skills to self care to self-regulate and to manage their
condition and therefore feel so good in themselves about themselves with what
they're achieving that makes it sustainable
From my perspective as a GP
I think there are two things that would really help for the future the first is
we need to find ways to keep people well at home to empower them to look after
themselves at home and the second is to think about wider determinants of health
particularly things around housing parks planning education because all those
things will be the things that actually help people stay in their own home and
keep well
This project has now been expanded courtesy of the Clinical
Commissioning group to cover a much wider area
The message to NHS colleagues
will be engage with your district councils they've got an awful lot to
offer they can help you with planning issues in particular on health care
infrastructure but critically they've got community leadership skills
To district councils you know there's nothing more important to you than a
health and well-being of your residents the services you provide are a perfect
opportunity to engage with health care colleagues to try to ensure the maximum
benefit for the people you represent
It has kick-started me into really thinking
about my health what I'm doing in the years that I've got left
I feel good