Diabetes Screening Event
At St. Mary's Church Hall on Thursday 18th July 2024, we hosted a Diabetes Screening Event open for patients to attend for finger-prick blood tests, in an attempt to find and diagnose patients who may be unaware that they are diabetic.
Over 100 finger-prick blood tests were completed on the day, with patients then getting the chance to speak to Pharmacists and Diabetic Specialist Nurse to discuss their results and the Health & Wellbeing Team to discuss potential lifestyle changes.
Also in attendance were Diabetes UK, Abbott, and the Digital Team from the Black Country Integrated Care Board.
Diabetes Information Day
On Saturday 27th January 2024, we held our Diabetes Information Day at St Mary's Church Hall, Bushbury. All patients with diabetes, pre-diabetes or gestational diabetes were invited to hear information from:
- Dr Cox (GP) & Dr Raghavan (Consultant)
- Foot & Eye Screening Specialists
- The Oviva Support Programme
- The Diabetes Prevention Programme
- X-PERT Health
- Our very own Wolverhampton North Network team
We had an excellent turn out and positive feedback. A big thank you to the team and patients who joined us on this day
Cancer Awareness Day
On Saturday 15th July 2023, WNN's Cancer Awareness Day took place at St. Mary's Church Hall. With professionals from multiple screening programmes in attendance, information on cancer and their screening programmes were available to patients in the form of stalls and presentations/videos.
Although no screenings took place on the day of the event, appointments could be booked for blood clinics that were set up dedicated to PSA tests. These appointments were highly popular.
Of the feedback received from patients that attended, 95% described the event as either "very good" or "good", with comments including:
- "Very informative and puts minds at ease"
- "Interactive, engaging and interesting"
- "Information presented in a non-alarmist way"
- "Prostate cancer team reassuring as I didn't recognise the symptoms mentioned"
We hope that this event has now encouraged more patients to participate in the relevant screening programmes in the future, when the screening window is open.
Health & Wellbeing Group Sessions
Our Health & Wellbeing coaches recently worked with one of the network's GPs to set up a group consultation programme, where patients were provided with information on how to improve their health and wellbeing over the course of multiple sessions.
This programme was popular, with patients attending every week. Each session focussed on a different aspect of health and wellbeing, including a diet, exercise and sleep.
Feedback from patients using the social prescribing service
“You've given me links to other activities to help me build some structure in my week. Thank you for listening to me and helping me to solidify what I have to do and how to move on. Telling it and offloading it really helps me to get balance in everything.”
“I feel I have somebody standing next to me that will help me to navigate through this extremely difficult life event … I feel reassured. Thank you so much for listening to me without judgement.”
“I appreciate all the support I have had from all of you from the beginning of COVID. You helped me by delivering food parcels, and sorted out the delivery for my prescriptions, receiving weekly check in calls to make sure I was okay. My Telephone Volunteer has been great - she is a lovely person. I was able to share so much with her. It is a shame this has to end I would have loved to have met her in person. It is amazing the work that you do. This is a great service - I cannot believe this would have ever happened to me, all the support that I have had. I hope this is not good bye because I do not just take … I like to give back to the community. I hope to become a Volunteer Mentor soon to start me off so please keep me in mind to do volunteer work with Social Prescribing in the near future. Thank you and I hope to see you again.”
“I feel better when I talk to you. You seem to be the one who makes the most sense out of all the other agencies I speak to. Thank you for all your encouragement and for helping me to achieve all this. My friend said I have changed so much.”
Covid-19 Vaccination Programme
Since December 2020, the network has organised a highly successful vaccination clinic for the local community. To date, we have vaccinated ~60,000 patients. This has been supported by the hard work of the staff of our 7 practices, volunteers and stewards.
Winter Access
Due to seasonal pressures, we increased the number of appointments available to patients. From January-March, we provided an additional ~3500 appointments. These include telephone and face to face appointments. These have been carried out by a range of clinicians including GPs, Nurses, Pharmacists, Pharmacist Technicians, Health Care Assistants etc...
Long-Acting Reversible Contraceptive (LARC) Clinics
A survey taken in August 2020 revealed that women in Wolverhampton had limited options when it came to contraceptive services. As part of a pilot scheme, in collaboration with Wolverhampton City Council, we have designed a weekly contraceptive service for women to attend. This has had a fantastic uptake and has significantly reduced the wait-time for our patients.