Hammersmith & Fulham (Phase 1 - Completed)

The following Well London activities took place in the White City target area.

Themed Projects

Be Creative, Be Well

• Albert & Friends Instant Circus project, leading to a public performance.
• The Somali Women's Development Group: A series of workshops and activities including a BME Film Festival and arts & crafts workshops.
• Phoenix High School:  A series of workshops and activities including Golf sessions, Floristry, a variety of crafts workshops and day trips.

Buywell

Food co-op (Phoenix School): Buywell retail project

Eatwell

• Cook & Eat courses were delivered in October 2008 and May 2009.
• Community Feasts were delivered in September 2008 and July 2009

DIY Happiness

Eight DIY Happiness sessions.  Dare to Dream ideas that were developed included:

• Aerobics and Yoga sessions.
• Salsa classes.
• A trip to London Zoo for local children.
• A riverboat trip to Greenwich.

Mental Wellbeing impact assessment (MWIA)

An MWIA took place on the Hammersmith Community Gardens Association project.

Changing Minds

Mental health awareness sessions took place on a variety of subjects including:

• Stigma and Discrimination.
• Food and Mood.
• Tackling preconceived ideas.
• Promoting Wellbeing

Healthy Spaces

• The Phoenix School Farm
• Healthy Spaces Trips to Pick your own farms followed by cooking sessions

Activate London

• Women Only Aerobics.
• Young people's Chinese Boxing sessions.
• Young people's Bangladeshi Football sessions.

After attending the classes for a few weeks, Kissu asked if I would like to become a physical activator and run my own session and I thought it would be a good experience. I was placed on a physical activator course and with that program I have started my own activity 'walk for life' within the local area. I'm also hoping to teach basic nutritional knowledge to the local residents with my new qualification as a health trainer.

Melissa, a local Resident

Heart of the Community Projects

Training communities

This project provided training for the following Well London groups:

• WLDT members
• Well London Activators
• MWIA facilitators
• Young Ambassador

Training Communities also offered Personal support packages (PSPs).  Examples of training people chose included the following:

• Managing for success.
• Creative writing.
• Mentoring.
• Parental skills.
• Aerobic instructor.

Youth.com

• Football tournament.

Related links

• Well London Delivery Team
• WellNet
• Active Living Map

Participant Data

Total participants; 2153

1807 people reported an increase in healthier eating.
1715 people reported increased access to affordable healthy food.
1618 people reported an increase in levels of physical activity.
1717 people reported that they felt more or much more positive.

I am very proud of the considerable achievement that project staff and volunteers have made over the past 12 months and I have felt very privileged to be part of such a strong and committed team.

Kissu Denton Savage Project Coordinator

Saumu Lwembe, Hammersmith & Fulham PCT

My job title is development coordinator at Hammersmith & Fulham Primary Care Trust (PCT). I’ve been here about 18 months, and ever since I came into post I have been assigned to this project. It is one of my core projects, particularly the Well London delivery team aspect.

The PCT has been involved from the beginning. White City Residents’ Association has been hosting the project and the PCT is resourcing it - it funds the post of Well London volunteer coordinator, as well as the project running costs.

One of the priorities identified by this project was that residents want to see more synergy in the delivery of services. What has been happening is that different service providers within the estate had their own steering groups, so one of the things that came out was why not have a much wider and larger group that brings all these parties together?

I was involved in setting up the Well London local advisory group, which has now evolved into the health and wellbeing board it's a bigger board now because it merged with other steering groups in the area, which takes care of the sustainability aspect of it all. So now one steering group oversees the health needs of all the residents. That changed in summer last year.

It's working really well. In the past where the health champions [Well London volunteers] had to go to different steering groups to talk about the same issues, now they only have to go to one. There is more communication and coordination.

That's only one of the changes. Something else I have observed personally is that whereas before when a professional  like me wanted to do a project on, for example, cervical screening, I would sit down, write a leaflet on what it is supposed to look like and just go out and do it. But with this project, before the delivery team decided what projects to do, they sat down with the residents and asked them to identify their priorities.

More and more I am seeing that we are adopting that approach. We are expanding the role of health champions to signpost health and social care services. Now instead of saying to the champions, “These are the social care services that you will be signposting residents to”, we are talking to the residents and asking them what services they want. We are inviting residents to become co-producers and co-designers of the services they want. Residents are more receptive to that [approach]. They become active participants rather than passive recipients.

Regarding the future… It’s quite a delicate environment right now with all the changes happening [the planned shift to GP-led commissioning of NHS services], so it’s hard to say for definite. But having just said that, I have just finished an evaluation of the health champions aspect of the Well London project. It asked: have the health champions been successful in addressing the public health objectives? And they have. They have made significant inroads in supporting public health objectives in Hammersmith & Fulham, and they have been successful in addressing health inequalities and improving access to healthcare services.

What the evaluation also shows quite strongly is that the health champions have established a two-way communication between residents and service providers. They provide the community intelligence that then informs service delivery. There is always that bouncing back of ideas. It is really working well.

We are working hard lobbying the future healthcare commissioners to take up this work. We are collecting evidence that this approach works so that hopefully the future service providers will be able to take it up. There is also a push from the borough to replicate this model in other areas such as adult social care. No decision has been made but the indications are good so far.March 2011