Health Trainers service at risk: please help

If you value the Health Trainers service, then we want to hear from you.

The latest round of cuts to services in Birmingham is being discussed as part of the Birmingham City Council’s budget consultation, and one of the services highlighted as being at risk is the Health Trainers service.

Health Trainers are one of the few discretionary services provided by Public Health (ie they are not statutory services), which means they are most susceptible to cuts. It’s possible that funding to the Health Trainers service will be cut dramatically, if not completely, later this year. We are currently putting together a response to the consultation to explain why Health Trainers are important to the city, and to thousands of people who receive their support.

If you have benefited from a working with a Health Trainer, please let us know how they helped. What was your experience? What would your situation be like now if it wasn’t for your Health Trainer?

If you haven’t been supported directly, but you understand the value of the service, maybe as a partner or referrer, we’d still be very grateful for your feedback.

You can send comments to us via email at MichelleS@gatewayfs.org, or write to us at: Gateway Family Services, 5th Floor, Chamber of Commerce House, 75 Harborne Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 3DH, and we’ll include your comments in the response we give to the consultation next week.

Alternatively, you can respond to the consultation directly by filling out the Council survey before next Wednesday, 18th January.

And if you’d like some inspiration, read on to hear why we think this service is so important…

Health Trainers: we give you extra!

The Health Trainer service isn’t just about weight management; it’s a long term, preventative service. Health Trainers help people to make lifestyle changes that have far-reaching consequences and so reduce the impact on other services.

In the last year, our Health Trainers have supported more than 2,000 people to increase their physical activity and to eat more healthily. But they’ve also helped hundreds of people to learn how to budget and to learn how to cook. They’ve helped people who were at risk of diabetes, or high blood pressure, to reduce their risk in the long term. They’ve set up group activities – which increase physical activity and reduce social isolation – and signposted people to many more. They’ve even helped people with housing issues, benefits claims and access to food parcels; issues that aren’t medical but nevertheless have a big impact on health.

Like all of Gateway’s services, our Health Trainers are an adaptable, flexible team. They offer home visits and phone support as well as community consultations. They respond to need as it happens and they put their wide network of contacts and skills to good use. They offer practical advice, but they also offer time, and someone to talk to.

More than 40% of the people Gateway Health Trainers have supported in the last year are from vulnerable groups, such as older people, people with mental health issues, and people who have an issue with substance misuse. And around 65% of Health Trainer clients are from deprived areas of the city. We know that people in these groups are much less likely to access resources on their own, which is why access to a Health Trainer is so vital: many of the people we work with would not otherwise receive any ongoing support at all.

Please help us to show why the service should stay.