Report on the Health Information Week July 6th – 12th 2009

Contact:

Sarah Greening Health Information Co-ordinator, Library Services Development Unit, West Midlands Workforce Deanery, NHS West Midlands, St Chad’s Court, 213 Hagley Road, Birmingham B16 9RG Tel: 0121 695 2227 Email: [email protected] Website: www.equip.nhs.uk

1 Aim:

Health Information Week (HIW) is a region-wide, multi-sector campaign to promote the good quality health resources that are available to the public and to encourage partnership working across sectors. HIW acts as a focus for work that continues throughout the year and it is hoped that the campaign should benefit all staff and the public by raising awareness of the resources that are available to them. A joint aim of the campaign is that staff will benefit by initiating and building on working relationships outside of their own departments and sectors.

Background:

Having a multi-sectored campaign to promote quality health information will fulfill some of the national requirements, for example:

• Encourage partnership working and improve access to quality local information (Better Information, Better Choices, Better Health, DOH) • Local communities leading for health (Choosing Health, DOH) • Promote healthier communities (Public Libraries Impact Measures) • Signpost to health information (Pharmacy Contract)

It is hoped that working together with other partners will improve the overall access to quality health resources which will benefit the public as well as staff members of the different organisations. Health Information Week started in 2005 and has been an annual week-long campaign in subsequent years.

Method:

All of the information and documentation was disseminated as widely as possible, in particular to these staff groups:

• Health librarians • Public Librarians • PALS • Health Promotion & Public Health • Specialist Resource Centres • Council staff

Staff were asked to collaborate with the other staff groups in their local area and to be creative in their ideas, eg: putting up displays where they would not normally promote their resources, holding health fairs, holding competitions and raffles to encourage participation.

Some information providers preferred to concentrate on a specific topic or issue, rather than the wide subject of health information. If this is the case, staff were advised to

2 promote information for some or all of the Government’s priority public health issues (Choosing Health):

• Reduce the number of people who smoke • Reduce obesity / increase exercise • Support sensible drinking • Improve sexual health • Improve mental health and wellbeing • Tackle health inequalities

Staff were encouraged to share their promotion materials so that a wider audience was reached.

Resources available centrally from NHS West Midlands:

• Promotional items for the EQUIP website were available on request – pedometers, pens, tape measures, magnetic word games, postcards, bookmarks • A generic poster about the Health Information Week to publicise the campaign - 2500 were distributed. • Poster e-template – this was used by many organisations who wanted to publicise their own events locally • Press release and newsletter article • List of core promotional materials which could be ordered • List of general health information websites which could be promoted • Diary of events • Ideas and suggestions for events

How events were promoted:

• Posters were distributed in public places and to GP surgeries and pharmacies • Articles in local newsletters and some national newsletters • Use of e-bulletins through email • Press releases – in some areas staff from different organisations worked together to get a piece into their local press • Local media – staff at WMLSDU issued a press release to all local radio and BBC networks and also filled in online events forms well in advance of the campaign week. • Websites – many put up notices about the week on their websites

3 Feedback:

Many staff from the different sectors involved in HIW2008 sent back completed feedback questionnaires or sent their own summaries of their events which have been extremely useful and will help in planning for similar events and campaigns. Organisers were asked a series of questions and the full feedback results, anonymised where possible, are available at the end of this report (Appendices 1-5). A summary of feedback to the questions:

1. Are there any new partnerships / contacts that you have made as a result of planning for this campaign?

Results: The feedback was less positive than previous year. Most people have been holding events for 4 years now and many have now built good relationships with other sectors and so did not make any new ones. Although it was encouraging to see that many are still making new contacts. Some said that they had made plans for future events and regular meetings or drop in sessions across the sectors.

2. Do you have any suggestions for improvements to the information about the campaign and resources available centrally from the West Midlands Library Services Development Unit (WMLSDU)?

Results: Most responders were pleased with the posters and the lists of resources and the press release etc. People were pleased with the extra promotional items – this encourages better uptake from the public, although some would have liked bigger quantities of items available.

3. Please give a description of what you organised in your area and who was involved.

Results: Some examples are given below (a fuller list is available in appendix 3)

• Public Libraries organised displays in all of the branch libraries that had the capacity • Some larger public libraries arranged for NHS staff to assist them in holding health fairs – offering blood pressure and cholesterol checks as well as information provision. • Some public libraries arranged for tuition by health librarians on finding health information on the internet – separate sessions for public library staff and public. • Many NHS organisations had displays and health information fairs with involvement from local voluntary organisations. • Displays were arranged by a variety of organisations in leisure centres, shopping arcades, supermarkets, etc. • In some areas the council advice centres organised displays and helped to promote the week

4 • Quizzes and competitions with prizes (eg: pedometers, tape measures provided by EQUIP, NHS West Midlands) were use to draw people to the displays • Walks, healthy eating cookery demonstrations, exercise classes

4. Any suggestions for improvements or things that you would like to have done differently or ideas for next time?

Results: Responders were forthcoming in their suggestions – already planning how they would do it differently next time and providing ideas for other areas. In the feedback they had received from participants, staff already have ideas and contacts for next year.

Conclusions:

As in the previous 4 years, there was a fantastic range of events and displays and some real effort was made to promote these and to encourage users to attend. There was great enthusiasm and creativity put into the events and this report should share the good practice for others to get inspiration for their own events.

In the 5 years that HIW has taken place there is clear evidence that HIW has brought about new relationships across sectors and within different departments in organisations. These relationships are being built on and are being effective in producing regular contacts and joint-working in many areas, mostly centred around utilising the community focus of public libraries which enables NHS staff to reach out into the community. Although there were fewer new relationships across sectors reported this year, it does seem that partnerships are being built on year on year and HIW does continue to be a valuable focus for such partnerships.

More investigation needs to be done to get noticed in the local media. Individual events need to be actively promoted locally and to the appropriate audience. We need to learn from events that have been successful – it is clear that the public are drawn to events where health checks and advice are being given by nurses, pharmacists or health visitors and once they are there, they will also look at other information resources available. Other successful campaigns included NHS staff going out into the community – using supermarkets, mosques, leisure centres, schools etc to promote the health information resources. This method can be used to target specific audiences or communities with relevant health information.

In previous years there has been a request for promotional materials or prizes being arranged centrally. Fortunately, this year NHS West Midlands were able to make a small budget available which was spent on pedometers and tape measures as well as the posters. These were very popular and helped attract more members of the public to the displays and events.

Health Information Week this year has been a bigger and wider-reaching campaign in most areas. The organisation and planning of events often seems to start very late in –

5 in the autumn the multi-sector Health Information networks will be reinstated in some areas and part of their remit will be to address HIW, so hopefully, next year will be planned well in advance. The successes could not be achieved without the support and hard work of many people from all sectors across the West Midlands and it is rewarding to see that this is becoming more than an annual campaign but evolving into more regular events throughout the year. The date has been set for the next year’s campaign will be – July 5th-11th 2010.

6 Appendix 1

1 Partnerships – Are there any new partnerships / contacts that you have made as a result of planning for this campaign? (these can be internal or external) Please state the sector and staff group.

- Made good partnerships with our local Walsall PCT (external) to provide free blood pressure and BMI checks in 5 of our libraries.

- Tesco person responsible for community engagement who provided drop in session with healthy breakfast samples-over lunch hour but would also have done health lunchboxes for children. She offered to invite us to any events Tesco might be holding in the future.. Also Dudley town centre manager who was holding Health awareness day in the market place and has since invited us to Fun Police Day. She is from Urban Environment Directorate Dudley MBC

- Health Information Week enforced established links with external agencies such as Bannatyne Health Clubs, HoB NHS Stop Smoking Service, Metronaps, Quaresma Beauty and Trade Union representation (RCN, UNISON, UNITE) The campaign also demonstrated good practice of collaborative working partnerships between teams across the Trust such as the Health Promotion Co-ordinator, Child and Family Information Centre, Arts Team, BCH Social Scene Co-ordinator, Chaplaincy Service, Dietetics, Harassment Advisor Team, Infection Control Team, Mediation Service and the Staff Counselling Service.

- Stroke Association

- No

- The focus for HIW 2009 was using the event as an opportunity to increase our outreach activities to Trust staff. The actions described in answer 3 enabled us to reach existing users and promote our services to none users. The activities proved particularly valuable for promoting links at the Shelton site library which has been part of Library & Knowledge Service for less than a year.

- Early years library, service Community Nurse services

- No

- Kamlesh Khetia, Coventry City Libraries Information and learning Development Manager brought together a number of local voluntary and

7 statutory representatives to plan Health Information Week. His organisation and the events planned for the week worked extremely well and many useful links were made between local agencies and groups. - No

- Manager at Walsall Reference Library had details of our service & leaflets. Members of the public who we chatted to and gave information to.

- No Contacts made

- As a result of Health Information week I have had several people contact me and ask to be put on my distribution lists as a result of the Health Information poster I sent out electronically being forwarded to them. Several were from the County Council and others were from other areas in the NHS.

- Just with yourselves and the Coventry central Library

- Yes – increased partnership working with the Warwickshire PCT

- Diabetes Nurses

8 2 Do you have any suggestions for improvements to the information about the campaign and resources available centrally from the West Midlands Library Services Development Unit (WMLSDU)?

- Possibly local coverage via the local radio/ BBC (may be costly!) to promote the campaign.

- No

- Other publicity materials to compliment posters e.g. carrier bags (with the apple logo) to give a more corporate identity. Availability of promotional goods e.g. freebies to generate initial interest at health promotion stands, encouraging the public, patients, families and staff to browse the resources.

- No

- We could do with more posters and leaflets

- The email circulated via LIS-WMNET was a good was to inform library staff about the event. The “freebies” are always popular with users. Perhaps if a regional event coincided with HIW it could be advertised then, for example a paraprofessional day or network day?

- To mount an effective library display eye catching posters are required, preferably centrally produced

- It would be a good idea for future to maybe have a slot or area for presentations or talks about the organisations and the services that they offer

- A wider variety of publicity materials would be useful to create more effective displays, without each participant creating their own.

- Advertised as Health Checks, Blood Pressure & BMI. We were told only to take information leaflets No other services present

- Pelsall Library event – Saw event advertised in local newspaper, didn’t look for any posters at library but would hope they had some.

- All these things just seem to be down to advertising. Maybe as every person takes out a book then a small leaflet could be put into that book

- No, although you might find it useful to look at the Institute of Customer Service’s National Customer Service Week website (www.nationalcustomerserviceweek.com) as they have lots of good ideas which you might want to incorporate next year.

9 3 Please give a description of what you organised in your area and who was involved. Please include any feedback you might have had from users, an estimate of how many people you reached etc

- Free blood pressure and BMI checks supplied by the staff of the Walsall PCT at the following libraries. I have included the number of customers they carried out this service to: Beechdale - 15, Bloxwich - 25, Pelsall - 12,

Central and Darlaston libraries were hoping to offer the same service but the PCT staff couldn’t on the day, so a stand of health leaflets and information was staffed for their allocated time slot. An additional poster was put together to promote the Equip website and distributed around the libraries.

- The focus for Health Information Week at BCH was health and well being for staff. Please see attached for the complete programme of events and supporting material. The campaign also saw the launch of the new poster for the Staff Counselling Service as well as the production of flyers for the Chaplaincy Service and an information booklet complied by a BCH Dietician entitled “Recommended Resources to help with Weight Management.” This supported the individual weight management/diet consultations that took place on Friday 10th July. No formal statistics regarding how many people we reached as events were run on a drop in basis, however positive email responses were received from exhibitors/participants and staff including requests for further information. External organisations such as HoB NHS Stop Smoking Service reported they had a good response in terms of the number of referrals and representatives from the various Trade Unions reported positive feedback re: the recruitment of new members. As a result of Health Information Week further promotion days are planned. Staff from HoB Stop Smoking service are now available on site every Wednesday. The health promotion stand is located at the main entrance and is available to all families, patients and staff to access a range of information/support materials, specialist advice, carbon monoxide level testing and signposting to local stop smoking services.

- We had a book display which focussed particularly on 'Change for Life', which was up for the week. We included in the display the HIW freebies we received. Difficult to say how many people were reached, the display was positioned near the exit, in the hope that all libray users would see it. Some books were borrowed and the freebies all went, although we didn't have many of those

- We had mainly storytime sessions with a healthy eating theme, also some health practitioners did drop in sessions but these were not well attended

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- A variety of organisation had information stands in the reception of Sandwell Council House in Oldbury.

Monday – Age Concern & Alzheimer’s Society Tuesday – Older Peoples Team Wednesday – Cares Sandwell Thursday – Adult Services & Health (Including Heatwave Campaign) Friday – Stroke Association & Age Concern. The Heatwave campaign went down very well. Over 90 people took away an information booklet, temperature/thermometer card and a bottle of water. Murray Hall Community Trust celebrated HIW by inviting Sandwell’s Confidence and Wellbeing team to set up a stall for the week to supplement our existing information service. There was a great deal of interest in the four short courses offered by the team on Stress Awareness, Food and Mood, Worried about Redundancy, and Wellbeing Awareness and, as a result we hope to use Murray Hall as a venue for future courses. MHCT also offered a free healthy all day breakfast on the Wednesday when around 70 people feasted on pancakes with blueberries and raspberries. Natural yoghurt, bagels with cream cheese and Staffordshire oatcakes plus lots and lots of fresh seasonal fruit were available. In order to earn their breakfast we asked people to complete a quick questionnaire on breakfast foods and the first few correct answers won a pedometer or measuring tape. Finally there were information advice points at Central Library in West Bromwich throughout the week.

- Display boards promoting our services were put up in each of the three site libraries. A news item was added to the Trust intranet and library website informing Trust staff about our HIW activities. A HIW poster was produced informing users about our services and displayed in the library. This poster was sent as a hard copy and as an email attachment to leads in Trust departments. We also circulated a poster via email reminding Trust staff about our literature searching service for patients and carers. Departmental leads were asked to forward this information to their team. Site Librarians followed up the HIW communications by outreach activities, for example contacting leads in Trust departments to arrange attendance at team meetings and discuss how library services can support the team.

- A display of materials, and books. Several titles were loaned during the week. We also used the promotional materials: pedometer, head-phones, fridge magnets and pens, in a prize draw for borrowers taking out stock related to the event.

- University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire’s Health Information Centre promoted their services to the wider public with a display at Coventry Central Library

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- ‘Change 4 Life’ Road Show

The ‘Change 4 Life’ campaign week was held at the Trust from 6-10th July, as part of the West Midlands Health Information Week.

The Road Show travelled around the wards of City and Sandwell Hospitals promoting ‘Change 4 Life’ to patients, carers, visitors, relatives and staff along with the Patient Support Centre in the Birmingham Treatment Centre.

The Patient Experience Team members, Kailash Desai and Sylvia Haywood were joined by Health Exchange supporters and volunteers to promote the importance of ‘Change 4 Life’ by emphasising key messages to patients, visitors and staff from City and Sandwell Hospitals of:

¾ Eating ‘5 Fruit and Vegetables’ a day ¾ Promoting daily exercises ¾ Highlighting the dangers of smoking ¾ Effects of drug, solvent and alcohol abuse

The team members came up with innovative ways in getting people to think about how they could be healthier in their lifestyle choices. They created a quiz for all to do with prizes up for grabs, balloons and crayons to make it fun for children and leaflets containing quick and healthy menus, for those who find it hard to turn on the cooker. Carolyn Benton who was visiting a relative at Sandwell Hospital said: “This is great idea to get people thinking about the importance of living a healthy life.

“I am 64 years old and I swim 20 lengths a week and enjoy sequence dancing which mixes all types of dancing from ballroom to salsa to keep me feeling young and fit. I even prefer to walk instead of jumping in my car especially for shorter journeys.”

Carolyn went on to say: “The road show really gives people useful tips about all types of health issues and I really enjoyed taking part in the quiz.” The Road Show worked towards helping all individuals, with help to those with disabilities and the availability of translators. Mary-Ann Earp, 19 year old volunteer assisted Frederick Gray, who is blind, to complete his quiz, ensuring access to the information was available to all. Sylvia Haywood, Project Facilitator for the Patient Experience Team said: “We really spread the word about healthy living during this week which I hope will help many people”.

“The staff at the Trust have also helped us to spread the word and Trust Volunteers have been very enthusiastic and helped us to reach even more

12 people about healthy lifestyles. We made learning about health issues fun and I hope it will give many people food for thought.”

Most popular leaflets requested during the Road Show were:

Recipe Leaflets Healthy Eating Health Information Week Quiz Change 4 Life

- We were not involved in the organisation, only asked to attend. 15 people attended. 2 health trainers present. All were given information on healthy lifestyle. 5 referrals taken

- Several libraries in Shropshire held Healthy Eating activities for children and families – most usually through pre-school story times (making “fruity faces” etc) but also at library homework clubs. These sessions for older children age 9-13 focused on the principles of healthy eating through practical activities such as smoothie-making and made the connection with other important lifestyle choices such as exercise and choosing not to smoke/take drugs. Total numbers of children participating probably around 100. (Oswestry library, Shrewsbury library, Market Drayton, Craven Arms and Harlescott Homework Clubs). General feedback – “It was really fun” , “I haven’t tried these fruits before – they’re yummy”. “We can choose more things to go in lunch boxes now” “I’m going to try making flapjack with my mum. I didn’t know it was made with porridge though.”

- Displays

- Pelsall Library event- Health trainers did a display of healthy lifestyle information and also did height, weight, BMI and blood pressure. Saw 8 people, small library and not very busy obtained 1 referral.

- We decided to use Health Information week this year to promote our new Public Health website which has information on lifestyle topics, our public health team and local support networks. We also liaised with the health libraries in our area and included the Worcestershire knowledge portal email address and logo on our poster along with our details. I sent this email electronically using our three campaign distribution lists which include all the practice managers, community pharmacies, county councillors, district nurse team leaders, practice nurses, professional practice facilitators, the public health directorate, the health information reference group and various other contacts we have gathered during our local campaigns. I also had 500 copies of the poster we put together printed up on the silky poster card and sent these out to our GP practices and pharmacies and to each department at the County Council and Worcestershire NHS PCT for them to display and to the Health Libraries for them to use in their displays during Health Information

13 week and to the Health Improvement Co-ordinators for the events they were arranging for that week. One of our contacts at the County Council included a short article about HI week in the Worcester Alliance monthly newsletter. We hope that we reached both a wide range of healthcare professionals and also the general public.

- Sahaja Yoga Meditation/Stress Relief. We run classes FREE of charge to the public and small interest group. The people who attend always say how much they enjoy the meditation but few if any ever attend the Free meeting we hold at the Friends Meeting House Coventry Monday evening.

- We included a Health Information display at our open day which coincided with the week. Out local PCT sent us information for the display. We had hoped to have someone available on the day offering mini health checks to the public but this didn’t materialise

- library sites put up displays advertising the WPCT Public Health website and campaign for healthy living High interest in Heart Foundation Trust literature, particularly from the Diabetes team to took website details and material for the wards

14 4. Any suggestions for improvements or things that you would like to have done differently or ideas for next time?

- None that I can think of!

- Perhaps start organizing earlier and will target different groups/ session leaders with more events in different branch libraries

- Although the week was publicised via posters and communication via the Trust Intranet, we felt we needed to focus on raising the profile of the campaign by planning and promoting the programme events at the earliest opportunity in the build up to the week. Greater involvement from Health Promotion Champions may have helped to target wider staff interest from ward/departmental areas. Despite many external organisations such as Arthritis Care, British Heart Foundation, RCN supporting the planned programme of activity by sending resources it would have been beneficial to have representatives available on site to answer questions and to demonstrate collaborative working partnerships. The choice of venues (Education Centre and Conservatory) may have to be reconsidered and the choice of days for the main activities (Monday morning and Friday) Although ideal locations to capture staff interest, the hot/humid weather conditions during the week perhaps discouraged staff from browsing further. Having the support for the campaign at relevant management level such as the Chairman or the Lead Nurse for Participation and Patient Experience may also have helped in raising the profile of the campaign.

- We had very few freebies to give away, some arrived too late, more and earlier receipt would definitely be helpful. Would do a display again.

- We should have done a press release for the drop in sessions but they are usually well attended and we did not want to overload the provider

- No! The event was a success in most wards. However, we might aim the event to include a younger audience.

- Better communication and advertising

- Designated funding for children’s activities would have been great – I know a professional storyteller who specialises in this area, even bringing her own fruitn’vegetorium to sessions ! This type of activity would have brought in nursery and infant school groups to libraries, reinforcing the health message whilst at the same time encouraging library membership.

15 - Pelsall Library event – Event took place 3 days after Pelsall carnival which the HT’s could have also attended, knowing now of poor attendance might be an idea for HT to advertise library event with own posters

- Leave leaflets on the activities on the counter where the books are taken out. Give all the people who take out books a leaflets advertising the meetings when the staff stamp the books out.

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