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NewsJuly 1st, 2015
As we draw ever closer to announcing the winners of this year’s Bevan Prize for Health and Wellbeing, we’re highlighting the work of two more of the finalists – Dr Paul Edmondson-Jones and Media Academy Cardiff.
Dr Paul Edmondson-Jones
Finalist – Individual category
Dr Paul Edmondson-Jones is Director of Public Health at Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, and was nominated for his work on the Healthy Living Pharmacy model. Through the model, he sought to improve overall health outcomes and foster a culture of wellbeing, while also reducing health inequalities.
Dr Edmondson-Jones started developing the Healthy Living Pharmacy model while based at Portsmouth City Teaching Primary Care Trust. It is described as both a way to approach commissioning and a framework to ensure consistency of service delivery in community pharmacies.
The Healthy Living Pharmacy framework ensures that pharmacies meet local needs while improving the health and wellbeing of their community. Each pharmacy must also have at least one Health Champion (someone who has completed behaviour change and leadership development) and a dedicated health promotion zone.
The team who nominated Dr Edmondson-Jones said: “Evidence indicated that the results seen in Portsmouth could be replicated in other areas with differing demography and geography. The strength of the improvements was notable as, despite limitations of the evaluation and variation in service delivery and evaluation across areas, gains were seen for different services, with different specifications, in geographically varied areas with different levels of health need and deprivation.”
To date, there are over 1,000 Healthy Living Pharmacies and more than 3,000 Health Champions in the UK. The model was mentioned as a case study in both the NHS and the Public Health White Papers in 2010, and has been nominated for several national awards.
To read more about the Health Living Pharmacy, click here.
Media Academy Cardiff
Finalist – Organisation category
Media Academy Cardiff (MAC) is a charity providing a range of accessible services to young people who are vulnerable to exclusion from mainstream society.
The team works with over 1500 young people every year, most of whom have specific health issues such as substance misuse issues, mental health needs, learning needs, obesity and smoking. They offer holistic education programmes for children excluded from school and those aged over 16.
They said: “For us, the ubiquitous term ‘holistic’ means education including access to counsellors, CAMHS workers and also substance misuse workers working with the teaching team to educate children and young people about health issues that may be adversely affecting their lives.”
MAC’s nomination specifically highlighted their ‘Parallel Lives’ programme, which seeks to combat adolescent against parent domestic violence.
The only programme of its type operating in South and Mid Wales, Parallel Lives receives referrals from a variety of partners including schools, South Wales Police and Youth Offending Teams.
The team said: “Child and adolescent against parent violence is an under-explored and complicated social and health care issue. Parallel Lives was developed as a result of a direct gap in provision for child against parent violence in South Wales.
It offers a comprehensive support programme to many families affected by child against parent violence and is not dependent on ability to pay as the service is free at the point of access. Participants are taught communication and anger-management techniques on the programme and substance misuse worker and counsellors are available to support participants.”
Read more about MAC and the Parallel Lives programme here.
The 2015 Bevan Prize for Health and Wellbeing is sponsored by:
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