NHS organisations - local supporter case studies

English region: East Midlands

Activities

NHS Nottingham certainly proved to have the recipe for success with its healthy lunch club, called ‘Let’s do lunch in support of Change4Life’, held in a community centre every week.

The club aims to improve the overall health of the local community by offering only sustainable, healthy and affordable foods.

On top of this, it offers free exercise sessions including hula hoop classes, martial arts/self defence, salsacise and boxercise.

The team also provides nutritional support and talks, increasing the knowledge and confidence of healthy lifestyles.

Reach: More than 40 people per session

English region: West Midlands

Date: 17-30 January 2011

Activities

As well as offering support, motivation and developing personalised health plans, NHS Worcestershire’s Change4Life health trainers used the Great Swapathon to offer information and resources on weight management, physical activity and the services the team provide.

NHS Worcestershire also partnered with The Co-operative to give shoppers the opportunity to find out their BMI (body mass index) and helped them to make some shopping basket swaps such as swapping whole milk for skimmed, or white bread for wholemeal.

Everyone who had their BMI measured was entered into a prize draw to win one of six healthy swap cool bags, filled with healthy breakfast, snacks and dessert alternatives, donated by The Co-operative and based on the Change4Life snack swapper wheel.

Other activities for the Great Swapathon included a mobile billboard which drove around the county, focusing on food outlets at industrial estates. Its aim was to encourage people to think about their weight and make healthy swaps. There was also a ‘stairs swap’ event, which encouraged shoppers to take the stairs instead of the escalators; plus an internal bus advertising campaign, encouraging people to get off the bus a stop early.

Reach: Health trainers calculated the BMIs of 240 people and gave healthy lifestyle information to over 1,200 people.

Resources used: Snack swapper

English region: East

Date: Ongoing

Activities

CASUS is part of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, providing information, support and specialist treatment around drug and alcohol use to young people under 18 and their families. There is no lower age limit, although most are aged 8-18.

Cambridgeshire Child & Adolescent Substance Use Service (CASUS) uses Change4Life resources as a means of talking to young people or adults about healthy lifestyles, before introducing more serious topics such as drugs, alcohol and smoking. The eye-catching colours attract people to the stall, and the resources can then facilitate a conversation.

While CASUS staff can't provide services to parents, they are able to direct them to apppropriate adult substance abuse services.

CASUS works with schools, using their own printed resources to create displays which can provide discussion points for teachers. They are planning to do something similar using Change4Life resources in future.

Reach: Hundreds, possibly thousands

Resources used: The really big summer adventure voucher book was popular with parents, especially the Powerleague football taster offer. The snakes and ladders game is also well received by children aged up to 14/15. The fun wheel also goes down well with parents and children alike.

More information:
More about CASUS

English region: West Midlands

Activities

NHS Coventry encouraged residents to get active by challenging them to collectively take enough steps to walk to the moon. A guide was produced that converted a range of activities from swimming to housework into an equivalent number of steps.

The campaign included an interactive website for people to upload their steps and participate in league tables and competitions. Everyone who signed up was given a free pedometer to help them count their number of activity steps.

Eight schools were selected to receive a special visit from the ‘Big Pledge’ double-decker bus. Pupils who signed up were given a free physical activity goody bag, including a frisbee, water bottle and pedometer, plus details of how to log onto the dedicated social-network style website.

The Big Pledge bus also made several visits to the Ricoh Arena shopping centre to engage local residents in the campaign.

More information:
More about NHS Coventry's Big Pledge

English region: East

Activities

NHS Cambridgeshire has commissioned a dedicated team, employed by CCS, to deliver the National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP). The team is made up of a school nurse lead, data co-ordinator and 2 health care assistants with support from a public health dietitian.

All parents of children who take part in the programme receive written feedback. CCS has used the opportunity of sending the NCMP feedback letters to initiate responses and offer ongoing support to those families who request input.

The ‘How are the Kids?’ (HTK) questionnaire has been used by the Change4Life programme to engage families in lifestyle change. With the Deaprtment of Health (DH), CCS has produced a traceable HTK questionnaire allowing families to indicate if they would like support from local NHS staff. The questionnaire is sent to parents of children in Reception and Year 6 who have been identified as overweight or very overweight, along with the NCMP feedback letter. The team receives a report which includes the number of questionnaires returned and the details of those wanting further support.

The team contacts the families and offers four flexible support sessions over the following 12 months - sessions can be by telephone or face to face. Each session focuses on two or three of the eight key Change4Life behaviours, and continuous assessment. The aim is to enable families to implement all 8 behaviour changes over the 12 month period.

Sessions are carried out by a specialist school nurse with support from a public health dietitian. All sessions are supported by Change4Life materials which assist in developing goals for the family to work on. Telephone/e mail support is also offered between support sessions.