Living Well

A third of the population in Cheshire and Merseyside live in the most deprived 20% in England. This includes the second and third most deprived boroughs in the country. Life expectancy in parts of the region is among the lowest. The Covid-19 mortality rate was 5% higher than average for England. In areas of higher deprivation, there is a higher than average prevalence of conditions such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Living Well is built on the principles of listening to seldom heard communities and bringing the right services to them. We operate as a drop-in service and we provide access to Covid-19 vaccinations, health checks, mental health and wellbeing support. We also act as a conduit to support people to access other services locally to them. We initially started as a roving Covid-19 vaccination service. While were doing that, we identified that the overlap between low uptake in certain communities for Covid vaccines and why the health inequalities were significant. So we used that understanding to evolve our offer and provide a much broader service to people to make sure they could take the opportunity at a hyper-local level to come and speak to a clinician about a wide range of health and wellbeing topics and get the right support for them. So we first started working with CWP last year. They used one of our outreach vehicles, which really meant that they could get to those communities who are typically harder to reach. Using outreach means that they can get to the hustling, busy city centres but also to those more remote locations as well. Ultimately, it's a mobile clinic space that provides all the benefits that you get if you went to your local GP or to a walking centre and people can have a safe and effective clinical experience. People have got out of the habit of visiting a GP and they've found that being able to have a health check one of these buses is just so much more handy for them. If you ask for instance, when did you last have your blood pressure done? They said, oh, pre-COVID. So they find it really handy, especially coming out and they've just been to the gym or whatever or just been for a swim. They've come out and they can get all these basic health checks done because we're here in the car park. They think it's a brilliant idea. Since scaling the project up in June 2022, Livingwell has delivered over 380 clinics across Cheshire and Merseyside, in addition to providing over 11,000 vaccines during that time. We have also delivered over 8,000 physical health tests. We're finding that around 17. 5% of all health checks we give have results that are outside the expected healthy range. This is higher than you typically expect from even opportunistic health checks. And this is, I think, a real rubber stamp of how targeted we are of a service and the fact we're able to connect so closely to communities that are otherwise not receiving support or not engaged with other options that are out there. All results are communicated directly with a person's GP to ensure appropriate follow-up can take place. Yeah, it's been really positive with all the patients. They find it really accessible. They'll get a text message sent out by the GP say they don't need an appointment. They can just turn up to the location, get the COVID job and get a health check as well. They're always asking where the next one is, where is the next one. I've got a family member who needs to get vaccinated. So I think it's really beneficial. I have found this service helpful because it's enabling me to get my next COVID booster. And also they offer a well-person check, which is fabulous, because I can have it all done here. I found it very helpful. My previous appointment was cancelled. So I looked up and got this one and came straight to you and got it done straight away. Well, actually, I think it's brilliant because it'so difficult now trying to get appointments and the hospital to get routine checks. I think it's a distinctive advantage trying to stay healthy and keep away from Dr. Sergei, who puts it possible. It goes back to our experience during COVID and recognising that the mass vaccination approach, it worked at 90% of the population, but there were pockets and communities that just didn't work for. And there was a n So we identified that by bringing services to them in a local way, saw a vast, vast improvement in engagement. I think it's just reminding people that the NHS is still accessible. And I think if we can make one person feel better, whether that's by reassuring them about their blood pressure, whether that's being able to sign posts into a service that they might benefit from, then we've done something well worth it. The story of living well really is the story of making every contact count. If you think about where we started as a roving vaccination service and how we've evolved so much to provide a much broader health and wellbeing offer, we've done that because we've been able to do that. Because we're committed to making sure that every single touch point that we have with someone, we're making every contact count.