Welcoming to Wolverhampton

OneWolverhampton Partnership in connection with The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust’s Primary Care Network successfully organised the first event aimed at improving the understanding of access routes to Health and wellbeing support and reducing pressures on statutory primary and statutory health services.

The event in Wolverhampton facilitated cross-sector information and advice with colleagues across NHS, Voluntary and Community Sector and Public Health in attendance, as well as sign posting on services including the NHS, understanding rights, pharmacy, GPs, vaccinations, cancer screening, diabetes, sexual health, domestic abuse, health visiting and maternity.

Heidi Burn, Health Inequalities Lead for OneWolverhampton, said: “It was so great to see such a good turnout of men, women, and their families at the event today. People often feel lonely and isolated, regularly facing barriers to accessing even basic health services due to not knowing the routes or options. If we are going to make any impact on reducing health inequalities and improving outcomes, we need to ensure better provision and access for our most vulnerable citizens.”

Councillor Jasbir Jaspal, the City of Wolverhampton Council’s Cabinet Member for Adults and Wellbeing: “Wolverhampton is diverse, and many of our residents have a variety of health needs. We recognise, we have households that often come from disadvantaged communities and may have faced challenges preventing access to health and wellbeing provision. Events like these are so important in supporting our residents to understand what their rights are and what services they can access locally.”

Feedback from attendees included “This is a well organised event and I have got a lot of benefit and information that will help me take care of my health and I appreciate that”.

Natalie Summers, Specialist Health Visitor, added: “Although we work with the families on a regular basis it was good for the families to see us with other health professionals. We were able to network with other health professionals who were not aware of our role and can now link in to support the families.”

We hope that this event will be one of many, and the learning will help us to further reduce inequalities, improve access and the information available for residents in need of health and wellbeing intervention and support.