Here for Health comes to the Horton General Hospital
19/11/2018
This article is more than five years old.
A new team, to help patients, staff and visitors live healthier lives, will go live on 26 November 2018 at the Horton General Hospital.
The Here for Health team can offer free advice on all aspects of improving health such as weight management, giving up smoking, controlling alcohol intake, becoming more active, and eating a healthier diet.
The team can also offer consultations tailored to individual needs, and can help make it as easy as possible to adopt small, sustainable and realistic lifestyle changes to improve health and wellbeing.
They have a wide range of resources to help people access a variety of community services, and referral pathways set up to make it as easy as possible to get involved.
The team is also available to support inpatients who may need help with improving their lifestyle, and staff can refer patients directly to them.
Lucy McMichael, Health Promotion Practitioner for the Here for Health team at the Horton, said: "A lot of what the team does is support people to make small, positive changes to their behaviour to live as healthy and happy a life as possible.
"Engaging with people and finding out their own individual needs is a very important part of helping them to make these changes - it's not one size fits all, and people will have their own motivations for tackling their health, which we explore."
Between August 2014 and October 2018, the Here for the Health team at the John Radcliffe Hospital had over 10,000 conversations with patients, staff and visitors about improving their health - a success they want to replicate at the Horton.
"We can advise people on all kinds of ways of improving their health - so if they want help with things like stopping smoking, improving their diet, exercising more, reducing their blood pressure, or just want a quick health MOT, they can drop in to see us and have a quick chat," said Lucy.
"We're not here to lecture anyone or make them feel uncomfortable; it's simply an open and friendly conversation about how people can make the best choices to improve their health."
The team will be available at the Horton from Monday 26 November 2018, Monday to Thursday between 10.00am and 4.00pm, in the Outpatient Department.
Pictured: Lucy McMichael, Health Promotion Practitioner