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.