Huge congratulations to the Feltham and Bedfont Primary Care Network (PCN) who won the award for Health and Wellbeing Advocate at the National BAME Health and Care Award on Thursday 28 September.
The award recognised their Health Outreach work during 2022/23, and their innovative approach in delivering vaccinations and health checks within hard-to-reach communities in Hounslow, which were designed to improve health outcomes for the local population.
In 2022 Feltham and Bedfont PCN started to deliver roving clinics initially focused on undertaking Covid-19 vaccinations, primarily targeting hard-to-reach BAME patient groups. The roving vaccination project was a success, carrying out almost 3,000 vaccinations. Furthermore, evaluation of the project revealed that members of the BAME population group with low COVID vaccination uptake were also less likely to regularly access primary care.
In response, the PCN expanded the roving service and began offering more health services, including blood pressure monitoring and body mass index (BMI) checks as well as advice on healthy eating and lifestyle, diabetes awareness, smoking cessation and drug and alcohol misuse. This work was carried out in close co-production and collaboration with Hounslow Councils Public Health and the Health Outreach Team (HOT).
The roving clinics paved the way for what is now the Healthy Hounslow Community NHS Health Check service, which went live in April 2023.
Feedback from the Award judges highlighted:
“In an extremely impressive group, the judges were impressed by the teamwork and widespread evidence of impact as well as the innovative nature of the work and how it overcame the barriers.”
Dr Mark Remedios, PCN Clinical Director, said:
“PCN staff have worked extremely hard over the last two years to tackle the health inequalities that exist within Feltham, Bedfont and Hanworth. The roving clinics allowed the PCN to expand our reach to include hard to reach communities across Hounslow.
“The PCN was then able to secure the Healthy Hounslow contract focussed on CVD prevention. With this contract, we hope to further develop this innovative model of roving health care to aggressively tackle the health inequalities present in our communities.”
Ellie Tobin, Head of Primary Care- Hounslow, NHS North West London, said:
It has been brilliant seeing how the work that we designed across the NHS and local authority in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic has grown and developed into a sustainable model for health outreach to serve our most vulnerable communities in the borough. This is a fantastic example of true partnership working across traditional organisational boundaries and sets a high baseline for future outreach work as a system”.
BBP Prevention and Health Inequalities programme
This piece of work was delivered through the BBP Prevention and Health Inequalities programme. Where projects aim to reduce health inequalities in the population and prevent long-term health conditions.
The project was delivered by the Feltham & Bedfont PCN who are an ambitious network of GP practices delivering health services commissioned by NHS England and North West London. They have worked hard to address health inequalities and deliver health outreach services to their patients.
Photo includes the Healthy Hounslow Outreach team who accepted the award on behalf of the PCN. From left to right, Nikunj Solanki (HCA and Deputy Lead), Stella Oryang (CVD Health & Wellbeing Coach), Jessica Bennett (Senior PCN Development Manager), Kulvinder Sharma (CVD Health & Wellbeing Coach) and Nasrullah Sultani (Healthy Hounslow Service Manager and Lead Coach).