- A message from our Acting Chief Executive Officer
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Bank Holiday guidance
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Three top tips to help you plan for the May bank holidays
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Service news
- Introducing the GP Care Group’s forward plan
- Social Prescribing Community Chest Pilot Fund - Tower Hamlets
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Launching the Tower Hamlets Child Healthy Weight Directory of Support Services
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What’s new on our website
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New “Health for Under 5s” website launched
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Healthy weight support for your child - new website page is now live!
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Check out our new Health Visiting website page
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Vaccination news
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Most vulnerable are being offered spring COVID-19 booster
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Guidance for parents
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The digital eRedbook is still available until December 2023
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Waltham Forest Best Start in Life newsletter – out now
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New perinatal mental health group: Raising Happy Babies
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New leaflet - Transition: Moving from childrens' services to adult services
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Wellbeing
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Improve your physical fitness with new, free weight management programmes
- Stress Awareness Month – Top Tips
As we head towards the 1 May bank holiday weekend, and the King’s coronation bank holiday weekend between 6-8 May, we want to remind you of three things you can do to ensure you are prepared and know what health services are available if you need them.
Read on for top tips on how to order repeat prescriptions, how to access medical care, and where to get COVID-19 spring booster vaccines if you or a family member are vulnerable.
The GP Care Group is always striving for ways to improve the quality of care we provide to the populations we serve, and how we can support and inspire our workforce. To ensure that we achieve this our Acting Chief Executive Officer, Zainab Arian, is sharing the GP Care Group’s forward plan for the coming months.
She said: “The GP Care Group is a unique organisation, one I am super proud to be a part of. We have grown, adapted and innovated over the past seven years. Moving into a new financial year and under new leadership I want to ensure we retain what makes us so special whilst maximizing the impact we can have to our communities, members and system partners.”
“There will no doubt be challenges to come, but I am excited to embark on this journey together and look forward to achieving our collective objectives in the years ahead.”
Click the link below to find out what the GP Care Group’s forward plan is for the coming months.
Are you a voluntary organisation looking for funding to deliver programmes in Tower Hamlets?
The GP Care Group’s Social Prescribing Service is currently involved with a Social Prescribing Pilot Fund that has been established by NHS North East London.
The fund’s priorities are to pilot and test activities that can support people’s health and well-being across North East London. Projects awarded funding should be able to establish swiftly, prioritise referrals from social prescriber link workers and provide evaluation by September 2023.
Awarded grants of up to £5,000 are available to a single organisation; and grants of up to £10,000 for organisations applying as a partnership.
Tower Hamlets children and families can now benefit from Child Healthy Weight Directory of Support Services; a one-stop resource to connect children, young people and families to resources and services relating to accessing healthy weight help in the borough.
Developed in partnership with the GP Care Group and London Borough of Tower Hamlets, the 17-page directory was developed following a borough wide mapping activity of community, universal, target and specialist healthy weight support services. It draws from the Tower Hamlets Local Offer, Clarity, and other service directories in the borough.
GP Care Group Child Healthy Weight lead, Phoebe Kalungi said: “Reframing how we think and talk about obesity is essential. Obesity has long been misunderstood, with people attributing excess weight to personal responsibility and holding simplistic beliefs about what works e.g., ‘eat less -move more’. This has resulted in the rise of weight stigma and for professionals, narrow and sometimes inappropriate support. The directory addresses these issues and includes targeted support for health professionals.”
To download and learn more about the directory, click the link below.
The GP Care Group is delighted to announce the launch of our Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest Local Area section on the award-winning Health for Under 5s website.
The Health for Under 5s website, co-designed with families, provides trusted information and health advice for parents and carers from pregnancy through to when a child starts school. There is also lots of additional information and resources for health professionals to ensure the best quality of care for children and families.
Parents, do you need support on ensuring your child remains a healthy weight?
We’re pleased to announce that the GP Care Group’s Child Healthy Weight page is now live on our website. In addition to housing the new Child Healthy Weight Directory of Support Services as highlighted in the story above, there is a wealth of information available about child healthy weight resources and support services, which you can access on the go or in the comfort of your home.
Visit the page for advice on how to start a healthy lifestyle for your family, parenting programmes in Tower Hamlets, financial support, emotional wellbeing advice, physical activity guidance, adult services, support for professionals, and much more.
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Are you a parent or parent-to-be, living in Tower Hamlets or Waltham Forest?
Our new Health Visiting page is an excellent resource for you to learn about how our team can support you with antenatal care, new birth visits, 6-8 weeks up to 2.5-years checks for your child. You can also learn about the team’s Child Health Clinics, which provides an opportunity for you to speak to a member of the Health Visiting Team with any questions about your child’s health, growth or development.
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Have you heard that there is a spring 2023 coronavirus (COVID-19) booster programme?
A spring booster dose will be offered to:
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adults aged 75 years and over
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residents in a care home for older adults
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individuals aged 5 years and over who are immunosuppressed
Eligible individuals will be offered the vaccine around six months after their previous dose and NHS England will confirm operational details for the programme soon.
On 1 April, NHS England announced that parents’ access to eRedbook has been extended to the end of December 2023 for North East London residents, including for those in Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest. This decision was made following concerns users raised when the platform was due to be removed on 14 March.
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For all our readers in Waltham Forest the latest issue of Waltham Forest’s Best Start in Life newsletter is out now, and it’s packed full of useful information.
There is guidance on how to arrange a Health and Development review by the health visiting team. If your child is aged 15 to 18 months, or over two and half years, and has not yet had a Health and Development review by the health visiting team, our Health Visiting team would like to offer them an appointment with a member of our team.
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Tower Hamlets Talking Therapies will be delivering their first in-person group ‘Raising Happy Babies’ from 3 May at the John Smiths Children’s Centre.
The group is focused on perinatal mental health and aims to support first time mums adjusting to motherhood. First time mums who have a baby 0-6 months old who may be experiencing symptoms of anxiety or low mood can join this group. Only mums who are Tower Hamlets residents and registered with GPs in Tower Hamlets can attend.
A new leaflet to support young people moving from childrens' services to adult services is now available. This was created in partnership between Frances Dawson-Otoo, Children's Continuing Care Nurse Assessor and colleagues in Tower Hamlets Children with Disabilities Team, and Special Educational Need services.
The leaflet gives general information on transitioning to adult services and answers some of the most frequently asked questions that parents and young people may have on the process.
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Are you looking for some ways to improve your fitness and overall health, without spending lots of money? No need to fret, two new programmes will ensure adults in Tower Hamlets can meet their fitness goals with ease.
You can take part in a free, 12-week Weight Action Programme in-person or online (via Zoom) programme run by specialists from the Health and Lifestyle Research Unit at Queen Mary University of London. Ability Bow is also running a free 12-week Eat Well and Move Programme for adults who live, work and study in Tower Hamlets. It is also available for those who are overweight/obese, have a physical disability and are registered with a local GP.
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It’s still Stress Awareness Month (April) and so here are some tips to help you if you’re feeling overwhelmed.
Whilst some stress is healthy and motivating the pace of modern life, commitments and responsibilities to juggle, and the prevalence of social media and information overload can combine to leave us overwhelmed. The bottom line is that too much stress is bad for us and it's important to find ways of managing it.
This Stress Awareness Month we’re sharing Employee Assistance Programmes provider CiC wellbeing’s 12 stressbusting tips to help you find ways to reduce stress that you may be experiencing in your daily lives.
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