Agenda item

To receive a report from the Cabinet Member for Strategic Commissioning

and Public Health and the Director of Public Health, setting out progress of the campaign.  The committee is asked to comment on the progress and impact of the campaign and suggest local organisations which could support it.

1.               Mr Gough introduced the report and presented a series of slides (included in the agenda pack) which set out the national and local context of the One You campaign and the way in which it related to and reflected the links between behaviours, lifestyle elements and work streams discussed in the previous item. These also included an explanation of behavioural science and its role in identifying patterns and triggers and contributing to campaign work to address ingrained behaviours. Research work had suggested that the Public Health message be established at key points in life, for example, when registering a birth, parents could be handed leaflets about healthy lifestyles so their child could start life with a good message and they as new parents could take the opportunity to adopt healthier habits. The Libraries, Registration and Archives service registered some 16,000 births every year. However, when habits were changed, the health benefit would be offset by the loss of what might have been a social network, for example, at the local pub, so to prolong the new habit, a replacement social activity might need to be established. Mr Gough updated some figures shown in the agenda pack: there had now been 89,000 sessions on the One You website and 27,000 referrals to the Public Health England ‘How Are You?’ quiz, and 30% of the target audience (particularly the 40 – 60 age group) had confirmed that they had seen the One You campaign. He then responded to comments and questions from Members, including the following:-

a)    the suggestion of using hoardings beside highways to advertise the public health message was being explored with Environment and Transport colleagues. Achieving a good visual impact was vital to a successful campaign, although work to support and back up advertising campaigns was important;  

b)    some behaviours were associated with, or were symptomatic of, psychological distress, for example, stress, and if habits were once given up, they could easily re-start at the next episode of stress.  It would be important to build resilience so the ‘comfort’ of smoking or eating junk food would no longer be needed;

c)    GPs used to be able to prescribe free sessions of physical activity at leisure centres but this scheme was not well taken up and so had been discontinued. To prescribe health was better than to prescribe medicine;

d)    two suggestions of partners which could work with the County Council on preventative work were volunteer bureaux and housing associations. Another speaker added that the seven million carers in the UK could also be a useful resource to spread the message. Mr Gough undertook to look into involving these, as well as Kent and Medway Fire and Rescue Authority and leisure centres. He explained that all such potential partners would be invited to a stakeholder event on 14 March;

e)    GPs in west Kent had identified that 25% of patients coming to the surgery did not need to be there but were seeking social contact to assuage feelings of loneliness;

f)     concern was expressed that the One You Kent campaign would be hard for some people to understand, although One You made more sense. Mr Gough explained that the One You campaign was a national one, with the by-line ‘because there is only one you’ – i.e. as there is only one of you, you should look after yourself, with each area adopting the national model and adding its name to make it a local project.  Guidance on local branding was given by Public Health England;  

g)    the budget for this launch year of the campaign, to cover set-up costs, had been £200,000 from the public health grant campaign budget, but next year this sum would be lower. This funding had supported delivery of the campaign at 1,000 locations around Kent and development of tools which partners could use; and

h)  the need to support long-term and sustainable habit change was emphasised. The complexity of implementing such a broad campaign meant that the involvement of behavioural scientists was necessary. Although the expense of the campaign may seem high, the cost of it not being successful would be higher in the long term as people with unaddressed damaging behaviours would develop long-term conditions which would be more expensive to treat.

2.                It was RESOLVED that the progress and impact of the One You Kent campaign to date be noted, and Members’ comments and suggestions of additional local organisations who could support the One You Kent campaign be noted.