Warwickshire’s Fitter Futures – Move! Improve!

Overview

This consultation provides an opportunity for you to shape and influence Warwickshire’s new service, called Move! Improve! – Improving Health in the Warwickshire Population Aged 50 and Over.

We want to hear your views as either a Warwickshire resident or a key stakeholder to ensure we appropriately direct resources to the right people, at the right time and in the right place.

Why your views matter

Why are we proposing a new service for Warwickshire residents aged 50 and over?

• The Warwickshire population is an ageing one with increased service demands, year on year. With reduced resources over the next few years, Councils and many other organisations are planning how they can provide services that support people to sustain and manage their own health and wellbeing.
• Reducing the risk of falling and improving health and wellbeing can be achieved by enabling people to take part in evidence based interventions that include assessment, appropriate physical activity and healthy lifestyle advice.
• Our aims of this support are to prevent people from becoming physically and/or mentally unwell whilst supporting them to stay independent and have the best quality of life possible.
• Falls in older age account for half of all accident related hospital admissions and are estimated to cost the NHS and social care services in England more than £2.3bn a year.
• Falling is not an inevitable part of ageing. However, it can strip someone of their independence and have a major impact on their own life and family.

What is the proposed new service?

• Warwickshire County Council, with key stakeholders, have agreed to design an evidence based service to improve the health of those aged 50 and over. This will be achieved by reducing the risk of having a first fall, improving health, improving quality of life and maintaining independent living.
• The new service will be countywide for Warwickshire residents aged 50 and over who may have a medical condition/other condition that makes them at greater risk of a first There will still be existing NHS and Social Care services available for people who have already had a fall/recurrent falls.

There are two proposed elements to the service, as follows:

Service element one:

A specialist healthy lifestyle and physical activity service, with clinical input, comprising 12 week personalised interventions. It will be for Warwickshire residents aged 50 and over who present for medical attention because of symptoms or difficulties with walking and/or balance which makes them at risk of a first fall. The aim is to enable people to self manage their condition during and after their personalised intervention.

The service will offer an evidence based assessment and intervention by a professional with appropriate skills and experience to address the risk factors for falling. It will include assessment and appropriate interventions for:

• Gait, balance and mobility, and muscle weakness
• Osteoporosis risk
• The person’s perceived ability to do daily living tasks and fear relating to falling
• Visual impairment
• Cognitive impairment and neurological examination
• Urinary incontinence
• Home hazards
• Cardiovascular examination and medication review
• Other lifestyle issues including mental health and the wider determinants of health (i.e. fuel poverty, housing, debt, isolation, mental wellbeing etc.

The service will include involvement of carers/family/friends throughout the programme in order to support the service user.

The service will be a referral only service through a single point of access. Referrals will be made by a range of frontline practitioners including health and social care professionals, pharmacists, community navigators and leisure providers.

Upon completion of the service, users will be reassessed and referred/signposted to other services such as the Fitter Futures Physical Activity/Healthy Lifestyle on Referral service for appropriate and continued general support.

Service element two:

A learning and development service for frontline practitioners (including doctors, nurses, social care workers, exercise instructors etc.) and carers/family/friends in contact with people at risk of a first fall. The aim of the service is to equip frontline practitioners, carers, families and friends with skills and knowledge to identify and take action to prevent a first fall when they recognise that someone faces this risk.

How to take part

This survey is part of a wider consultation process.

It is available HERE and in paper format by contacting us by Email or telephone. 

You can also request additional copies of the survey or ask for this in another format such as large print, through the same contact.

What will happen with the information that we gather?

• The information/data collected by this survey will be kept strictly confidential and shared only with Warwickshire County Council staff responsible for analysis of the data and those responsible for the commissioning of the Move! Improve! service. All data will be stored securely and erased within four years.
• All comments, feedback and information we receive will be used to inform how future Move! Improve! services are delivered. You will not, in any way, be identifiable in the survey analysis from your responses and any comments will be anonymous. The findings from the consultation will be presented to Warwickshire County Council’s Cabinet, for their approval to commence a tender process for these services.
• Please do not provide any additional correspondence to our surveys as personal information, may be disclosed in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Data Protection Act 1998. If you want the information that you provide to be treated as confidential, including your contact details, please tell us why, but be aware that, under the Freedom of Information Act, we cannot always guarantee confidentiality.
• For further information see http://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/privacy or contact our Customer Service Centre on 01926 410410.

What happens next

This consultation has now closed.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to give us their views.

If it is approved by Warwickshire County Council members, a formal tender process will be undertaken during winter 2017 to commission the new Move! Improve! service, with a planned start from 1 April 2018.