Before the beginning of lockdown era our very own ‘Bite Sized Health’ in the Workplace was launched from a simple conversation with a Construction Site Manager at a Sunday morning Food Festival, who wanted some leaflets to share around constructions sites in North Wales.  A prime example of ‘every contact counts’.

This began a rollercoaster ride of ideas to reach one of our hardest groups to engage with – the ‘Working Age’ group.  We wanted our engagement to kick start meaningful dialogue with our working age population, especially in a very industrial area of North East Wales.

We were approached by the local Health and Safety Forum in partnership with Wrexham County Council to discuss our ‘Bite Sized Health’ idea and asked to pilot a Health and Wellbeing event for all the HR leads on the Wrexham Industrial Estate.

The event attracted over 24 Health and Wellbeing support organisations and health services.  HR leads attended throughout the day visiting all the stalls and were encouraged to sign up to host a ‘Bite Sized Health’ event in their own workplace.  We launched our ‘Bite Sized Health’ initiative at this event.

Eight companies signed up on the launch day and hosted between 15 and 24 Health and Wellbeing information stands at their places of work e.g. Liver Trust, Carers Wales, BCUHB Diabetes Team, PHW Screening, CALL Helpline, CAIS, Rowlands Pharmacy and many more.

One of the largest successful event was hosted at Wockhardt Pharmaceutical in Wrexham who had over 400 employees at the time.  Employees attended the event in stages throughout the day, engaging with all the Health and Wellbeing support and information on hand.  Rowlands Pharmacy conducted over 192 blood pressure checks during the day.

When lockdown ‘landed’, putting face to face interactions on hold, we needed to look at different approaches to reaching our population quickly.

We set up a small group of business representatives from the employers signed up to ‘Bite Sized Health’ who we had built up a good relationship with; to find out how we could best support them to access timely information and ensure channels for meaningful dialogue was in place.

The group co-designed a pilot survey to be shared with employees in businesses across Wrexham and Flintshire to gauge need and issues emerging form the early stages of the Covid Pandemic.

Responses to the survey were shared with local area Health Board teams and also the Covid Equity Strategic group, which proved to be valuable insight as to what support and information was needed and how.

From the issues and concerns raised in the survey responses together with insight from our Covid Conversations discussions with our wider stakeholders – we produced regular monthly updates which contained links to current information and relevant websites; which enabled employers to respond to queries, and signpost quickly.

The updates alleviated concerns around the conflicting information shared between England and Wales – different rules and regulations caused a lot of confusion for employers and staff living and working across the borders during lockdown.  We worked closely with the local Healthy Working Wales and Test Trace Protect teams to ensure accurate information was shared.

We also shared these ‘Covid Conversation’ monthly updates with our colleagues in the third sector who provided astronomical levels of support during the Covid Pandemic, to whom we owe a debt of gratitude.

As lockdown eased we ventured into the unknown… we began to host ‘virtual’ Bite Sized Health’ events which again focussed on the main issues raised during our regular conversations with our stakeholders.

Hosting our events virtually meant that we could open these up to the wider public and forged links with many new groups in the community – we began with 35+ organisations hosting stands on our virtual Padlet board.

The BCUHB stand hosted Q&A sessions which included Pharmacy teams answering questions on Vaccines, TTP team answering questions on Testing and Isolation, Maternity Voices, Men’s Mental Health supported by Health Professionals and Veterans support organisations – this is being extended to a wider Men’s ‘Bite Sized Health’ session this summer.

Our ever changing world has called on many different ways and tools to engage; we have had to adapt quickly to ensure that the services we provide are relevant to the current needs of the population we serve.  We removed language barriers by utilising Wakelet boards to share information during our ‘Living Healthier Staying Well’ – strategy refresh.

Development of ‘Engagement Toolkits’ is underway together with training resources for our staff to strengthen our capability to listen and learn and to co-design future services for a healthier population.

Our lockdown Children and Young People are one of our priorities going forward and we are developing ‘Story Boxes’ to launch a generation of ‘Health Superheroes’; co-designed by Children and Young People.  We are in discussions with Young People to build their own space and presence on our Website – asking ‘how would you like to be communicated with?’ and ‘what information you need?’  This work is part of our Children’s Charter development.

Moving from reactive to proactive is a goal to be reached using whichever tools, resources and methods available – to build a more resilient, informed and healthier population.

About the author:

Karen Owen, Engagement Officer at Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board

I have always lived in North Wales and have a background in Community Development.

I came to work for the local Health Board nearly 6yrs ago as an Engagement Officer and am passionate about improving how we engage with our population here in North Wales.

I am part of a small but dedicated team of Engagement Officers, who are supported by a great leadership team.