The Stronger My Way campaign by the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists (CSP) is built on insight from professionals and people living with long term conditions. Connect Health is supporting the campaign by equipping healthcare professionals and patients with the skills and knowledge to enable patient behaviour change.
Some of the key components of the Stronger My Way campaign are understanding local needs and the delivery of cultural competent services.
Darren Finnegan, Physiotherapy Team Lead, and Rebecca Gray, Physiotherapy Team Lead, from Connect Health work within the South Tyneside Community Musculoskeletal Service.
Darren explains:
In South Tyneside we looked at the wider health ecosystem and challenges facing healthcare professionals with engagement in conversations.
Fuelled by completing the All our Health course, a course which helps professionals make an impact in preventing illness, protecting health and promoting wellbeing, Darren researched South Tyneside’s local demographics using Public Health England data and discovered that people in the catchment area had the lowest physical activity in the North East. It was found that on average 66.4% of adults achieve less than 30 minutes of physical activity per week across England in comparison to the 57.2% of people in South Tyneside.
The South Tyneside MSK team concluded that physical activity was a significant part of the solution to tackling local health demographic challenges. Physical inactivity along with a historically high opioid and medical imaging rate in South Tyneside encouraged the team to take a look at what the community needed and the actions they wanted to take to help improve the wellbeing of the public.
Rebecca explained the actions they took, one of them being that they created drop-in sessions for local residents from minority ethnic communities.
We held sessions for knee and hip arthritis, which the attendees enjoyed. We talked about appointment availability, with physiotherapists and GPs, and what makes a good or bad appointment.
We learnt about patient preferences for care delivery and whether face-to-face or virtual was better, and when.
We asked if female patients were open to group exercise and discussed their information delivery preferences, like paper leaflets for exercises in their own language, or emails and videos.
Adapting our services in Camden, Rory Twogood, Team Lead Physiotherapist at Connect Health, said,
Patient feedback suggested significant numbers of female patients did not want to come to mixed gender classes, so by doing this session – led by female therapists – we have opened up access and provided a route into physical activity.
We give support to patients who are less confident with strength training and need more guidance with technique.
The aim is to move healthcare out of hospital and clinics, into healthy community spaces.
Explore the offerings of the Stronger My Way campaign which grants professionals access to training and resources and patients access to guides to help them improve their strength and wellbeing.
Stronger My Way
For ideas on how you can get stronger your way, please see our resources section that is packed with exercise ideas and tips!
Our Resources
Read more about how Connect Health is assisting with this campaign:
Our Contribution
Download the Stronger My Way infographic and learn more here:
Infographic
Find out more about how we are helping the community
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