PH Health Improvement

The UK guidelines suggest that the average adult should undertake 150 minutes of physical activity per week. 

More than half (54%) of all Greater Glasgow and Clyde residents are not active enough to gain these health benefits.

See Chapter 5. Section 5.3.1 of the Director of Public Health Report 2015-17 for more background information on levels of physical activity in Glasgow and Clyde.

See also the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde 2014/15 Health and Wellbeing Survey  (Section 3.4)

To help with this, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde have a Physical Activity Team who work with a range of partners to try to increase physical activity levels.  Part of our remit is to work with our six Local Authority partners and to part fund the delivery of three core physical activity programmes; Health Walks, Live Active and Vitality, which are available and promoted throughout the GGC area. 

Further information

The aim of the Employment and Health Team is to improve the health, safety and wellbeing of our working age population. The Team continues to provide a range of services and resources to support health and wellbeing in the workplace.

Good Work

“A healthier workforce really does make a difference when it comes to staff retention, attendance and productivity.”

Looking after your staff can result in improvements in their health and morale and also a reduction in accidents and sickness absence. We provide free, confidential support and advice to help employers create a safer, healthier and more motivated workforce. All our services are free, and can benefit both your organisation and your employees.

Workplace Training Programme

The Employment and Health Team offers an extensive programme of free training to all businesses in Greater Glasgow and Clyde. This is currently delivered remotely and is advertised via our monthly newsletter.

Some training sessions are aimed at improving the wellbeing of all staff, and other more specialised sessions are aimed at managers and those with a human resources role.

Further Information

Poor diet and an unhealthy weight are two of the main contributors to poor health in the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde area and seen throughout our lifecycle. 

The Scottish Dietary Goals were established 20 years ago to set the direction of a healthy diet to reduce the burden of obesity and diet-related disease. Unfortunately little progress has been made and we still consumes too much energy, saturated fat, sugar and salt and not enough fruit and vegetables, oil-rich fish and fibre. This poor diet is contributing to obesity.

We know that across NHSGGC: 

• 22% of primary 1 children are overweight and obese
• 16.9% of women and 9.2% of men aged 16-24 years old are obese
• 65% of men and 59% of women aged 16-64+ years old are overweight and obese. 

Obesity and poor diet exist across the population but inequalities exist with diet and obesity being particularly worst in our poorer communities.

What we’re doing to address these issues: 

NHSGGC are committed to addressing poor diet and weight issues by working with our partner organisations to provide programmes supporting healthier choices such as:

• Community Food
• Your Body Matters Curriculum Pack
• Local cooking programme – more information coming soon
• Physical activity programmes such as Live Active, Vitality and Health walks.
• Targeted weight management services for patients with existing clinical needs

Health Improvement describes our work to improve the health and wellbeing of individuals or communities through enabling and encouraging healthy choices as well as addressing underlying determinants of health such as poverty and lack of educational opportunities. We work with a wide range of partners to influence policy, service provision and wider environmental factors that help support positive health outcomes for our population, especially those in greatest need.

You can contact the Health Improvement team at:

hiadmin@ggc.scot.nhs.uk

Smoking remains the single biggest preventable cause of ill-health in UK (Ref: ASH (2014) ASH factsheet 2: Smoking Statistics, illness and death. http://ash.org.uk/files/documents/ASH_107.pdf).

Within NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, 25% of the population are currently smokers and men are more likely to smoke than women. 

In 2013, the Scottish Government launched their new tobacco strategy for Scotland, ‘Creating a Tobacco-Free Generation’ with the aspiration of achieving smoking rates of 5% or lower amongst adults in Scotland. 

In response, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde tobacco control activity and “Quit your way” service adopts a wide approach to tackle the harm caused by tobacco. Supporting people to stop smoking is the most well known tobacco control measure.  However, actions to prevent young people from starting to smoke and protecting people from the harm associated with secondhand smoke are just as important. 

Tobacco control brings together the broad themes of Prevention, Protection and Stop Smoking and requires strong partnerships with public, private and voluntary groups to influence smoking culture and reduce smoking rates. 

To find out more about what our services can offer call the Quit Your Way service on 0800 916 8858 or visit:

Training and development opportunities for the health improvement workforce.

Our new NHSGGC Public Health Workforce Development SharePoint site is where you will be kept up-to-date with the latest news, approaches and learning and development opportunities for the core Public Health Workforce to equip staff with the skills, training and feel supported to do their job. This SharePoint Site is aimed at the Core Health Improvement/Public Health Workforce within Greater Glasgow & Clyde. For more information or to request access contact: HIAdmin@ggc.scot.nhs.uk .

Our training and development opportunities directly support many of the priority themes set out in Turning the tide through prevention, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde public health strategy 2018-2028 and also contribute to the development and maintenance of public health competencies.

Life Circumstances are the circumstances in which people live which impact directly on their health both mentally and physically (Scottish Public Health Observatory).These circumstances can include:

• Living conditions e.g. secure housing, locality, overcrowding, green space, traffic
• Income e.g. having enough to live on
• Secure and good employment e.g. Living Wage
• Education e.g. Opportunities for Learning

Evidence suggests that if these issues are taken into account as part of an individual’s care in the NHS then opportunities arise which can lead to improvements in health and reduction in inequalities.

For example, current reforms to the welfare state are likely to impact adversely on NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde patients for example they may increase mental distress, poverty and diseases related to poverty all of which will have an impact on the individual, their family and friends and the NHS in responding to increased demand.  Income inequality in the United Kingdom is currently at its highest in the last 40 years. Increasing rates of child poverty have also been noted with 1 in 5 children in Scotland living in poverty with this rising to 1 in 3 where there is a child with a disability.

Life circumstances are also linked to social class which include factors such as economics (wealth/income/occupation), political factors (status/power) and cultural factors (lifestyle/education/values/beliefs). 

Evidence suggests that individuals with poorer life circumstances are:

• More likely to have poorer health including living with long term conditions e.g. Heart Disease
• More  likely to die prematurely
• More likely to be living in poverty
• Less likely to make healthier lifestyle choices
• Less likely to achieve good educational qualifications
• More likely to be living in communities of high deprivation
• More likely to be in insecure employment, in work poverty and underemployment 

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde have a range of programmes to tackle life circumstances which includes access to money advice in acute hospitals, employability services, staff training programmes and service delivery developments.

Resources for NHSGGC Staff

An e module has been developed for all NHSGGC Staff on:

• Poverty and Financial Inclusion
• Employability

• These can be accessed via LearnPro and can be found under the specialist subjects tab

See also:

• Health Scotland  – Financial inclusion referral pathway toolkit