Last week in Gothenburg, Sweden I had the advantage od speaking to Marina Olsson, the Chief Executive Officer of with. A conversation that should be easier with Public Health services migrating to local government.
Last week in Gothenburg, Sweden I had the advantage od speaking to Marina Olsson, the Chief Executive of Angered Hospital. Angered is an area with a high proportion of BME residents and it was interesting to see some of the parallels. As with London, more and more jobs are becoming degree level entry, a starting point made even starker by the Swedish education system which assumes a longer time in full time education than ours. Many Angered residents have left behind, with poor Swedish and skill levels tending to exclude them from the jobs that are going in Gothenburg. Again, as with here, worklessness has become associated with long term conditions such as heart disease, poor mental health and Diabetes. Marina was particularly concerned with high levels of COPD among her residents. She is charged with putting together a small community hospital in the area from a range of existing services. She is using volunteers from the community to engage the newer Swedish communities, often Somali or Iraqi in origin, in better health.
This naturally chimed in with some of the thinking that we have been doing at Barts Health in relation to promoting health across the new Trust. Last week we took a major step forward by holding an event that drew clinicians and other key individuals from the three old ("legacy") NHS Trusts, Barts and the London, Whipps Cross and Newham, along with public health colleagues from across East London, to try to set out the this agenda. Dr Douglas Noble from Queen Mary University of London set the scene with his ideas for a public health strategy for the Trust, which the participants supported with well over a 100 ideas on how to make it a reality.
Although we are a new Trust, of course there is much existing good practice, so we showcased good work from across the piece, including work in Diabetes, Smoking Cessation, Diet and Nutrition, and Mental Health, The area is to cover patient healthcare, staff and wider environmental factors. On the employment side, we added occupational health and staff health and wellbeing into the mix
I shared this with Marina, but speaking to her reminded of an obvious point that whilst it is great to develop preventative medicine in acute hospital settings, the role of primary and community care is going to be key to making this agenda effective. Marina's hospital can address chronic conditions in close engagement with her local communities, and hopefully become a bright beacon of good heath in Gothenburg. A future step for Barts Health should be to take the aims of promoting good hospital health into a local context. We need to be talking about housing conditions, low incomes, debt issues and worklessness with the four or five local authorities that we are associated with. A conversation that should be easier with Public Health services migrating to local government.
Secretary to the Professor of Psychiatry
We are looking for a person with initiative who is well organised, has good communication skills and is able to work with minimum supervision. It is necessary to be able to...
