Report on savings
Savings promote wellbeing
This report explores the positive short and long-term impacts that savings can have for people’s wellbeing and considers research from a study called Understanding Society.
Health literacy webinar
No-one left behind?
A webinar exploring how improving health literacy can lead to better health outcomes and more effective use of health services. The importance of engaging users and providing clear, accessible information to ensure everyone can navigate and utilise health and social care services efficiently is discussed.
Societal Research
Understanding Society
Capturing life in the UK in the 21st century Understanding Society is the largest longitudinal household panel study of its kind and provides data on all sorts of areas of life.
Wound care resources
National wound care
The National Wound Care Strategy Programme has produced a series of resources to improve care for people with pressure ulcers, lower limb and surgical wounds. The Health Innovation Network’s Transforming Wound Care programme is focusing on lower limb wounds and improving patients’ access to evidence-based care.
Wellbeing resources
Take 5 to Age Well
In September 2023 the Open University launched “Take Five to Age Well” – 5 steps to boost health and well-being. The campaign invites people to join a UK-wide community making small daily changes for better ageing. Funding is being sought to make this a continuous annual campaign.
Exercise Resources
Support for people with LTCs
We Are Undefeatable has a range of videos and tips on how people with long-term health conditions can incorporate movement into their lives and so feel healthier.
LTC Digital Application
Aide Health
Aide Health is a digital service that helps patients and their clinicians better understand and manage chronic disease, specifically comorbidity. Results from a pilot showed the service improved users self-care practise with 75% medicine adherence rates, and 80% retention after 30 days.
Social media use Poster
Social media PiF Poster
Health information expert, the Patient Information Forum (PIF) has produced a poster to help people navigate social media when it come to health advice. It’s easy to share misleading content and the hope is that people will have a better understanding of how to fact check first.
Nutrition Resource
Nutritank podcast
Aimed at educating health care professionals about nutrition and lifestyle medicine, the Nutritank podcast provides inspiring stories and key insights from experts across the lifestyle medicines, food systems and nutrition industries.
Quit Smoking Resource
Perioperative benefits
The Centre for Perioperative Care has produced this “quit smoking” poster which details the importance of stopping smoking before having an operation.
Nutritional Resources
Food guides
BANT – the British Association for Nutrition and Lifestyle Medicines has produced “food for your health” guides to empower people to make health dietary and lifestyle choices.
Inequalities analysis
Inequalities in 2040
In this report, the Health Foundation predicts the number of people living with major illness to increase by 2.6 million and reach 9.3 million people in 2040 in England. This analysis aim to help policy makers and leaders in health and care look beyond short termism when it comes to making decisions that might impact health determinants.
PPG Resource
Self-Care Guide
This Guide was developed by the National Association for Patient Participation (NAPP) especially for Patient Participation Groups to implement activities to support local communities.
Resource
Home Care is best poster
Poster to communicate the message that antibiotics don’t work on most common illnesses.
NHS Resources
Shared decision making aids
NHS England has a series of shared decision making aids, providing evidence-based information to help patients to consider what matters most to them in relation to the possible outcomes, including doing nothing.
Health Literacy Toolkit
A toolkit which explains what health literacy is, why it’s important and what tools can be implemented by health providers to increase people’s levels of health literacy.
3 Questions for better health
Co-designed with people with a learning disability and autistic people, these easy read resources help people who have learning difficulties understand how to get the best from their health services.
ELfL Health Literacy Course
This free 30 minute course is for people working in health and social care to support people’s understanding of health information and increase their confidence to be active partners in their care and increase their ability to make better health choices.
Happy Maps
Find professional advice and accurate information on young people’s mental health, all in one place
From preschool to young adults.
For Parents, Young People and Professionals
Service-user Resources
Migraine Trust
The UK’s migraine charity, The Migraine Trust, has developed a series of toolkits and factsheets designed to help manage the impact of migraine in school, higher education, and in the workplace.
Health Foundation Report
Health in 2040: Projected patterns of health in England
This report by the Health Foundation’s Real Centre and the University of Liverpool, looks at patterns of illness over the next 20 years. It lays out the potential impact of the growth in people living with major illness, and how this will affect people’s use of primary care and emergency health services.
Insights Report
Self-Care in 2030
An international report looking at the future of health and wellbeing and how we get there. Focusing on the 7 pillars of self-care, this report provides insights on how to ensure self-care for all by 2030.
Self-Care Illustration
7 Pillars of Self-Care
The International Self-Care Foundation attempted to illustrate the different components of self-care, coming up with 7 pillars including health literacy, mental wellbeing, physical activity, healthy eating and more.
Guideline
Self-care competency framework
The World Health Organization (WHO) has produced 10 key competencies for health and care workers to support self-care in their clinical practice.
School Resource
Healthy Steps
Public Health England has developed a range of nutrition resources across different subject areas designed for use throughout the school year to encourage pupils to build healthier habits for life.
NHS Leaders Resource
Bitesize Learning
Open to anyone in health and care, a series of short guides are available to help people develop new skills and discover new ways to improve their experience of work.
Men's Health Report
Who self-cares wins
This report from Global Action on Men’s Health suggests that improved men’s self-care practises would result in better health for men as well as for women and children.
Service-user Resource
Menopause and Sleep
Many people will experience bouts of insomnia from time to time, but menopause related insomnia can stretch on for weeks, months or even years if not properly treated.
This resource from The Sleep Charity has helpful recommendations and advice on what to do when suffering from sleep disturbances due to the menopause.
Do also take a look at the Self Care Forum’s menopause fact sheet for self care support.
Service-user Resource
Resilience poster
This colourful poster has 10 simple tips on ways to protect our mental wellbeing ensuring we become resilient and better able to cope with life’s challenges.
HCP E-Learning Course
Learning disabilities course
Health Education England’s E-Learning for Healthcare has produced this e-learning course. It is a bite-sized session to give health and care professionals and the wider public health workforce an overview of learning disability – including key evidence, data and signposting to trusted resources to help prevent illness, protect health and promote wellbeing.
Service-user Resource
Cancer Information
The Health Education England London Pharmacy team has collaborated with BOPA to produce a series of cancer fact sheets, which can be used as a resource for community pharmacists to support their patients. They were also produced for BOPA’s “Let’s Communicate Cancer” course.
Click here for more information >
Information Resource
Producing easy read Info
Everyone should be able to make informed decisions about their health and care. All communications, information and digital tools should be accessible with the option to personalise. Which is why the Patient Information Forum (PIF) has produced a series of posters, to help producers of health information with tips on supporting people through resources and material.
Click here for more information >
Workplace Resource
Poster – managing stress
Mental Health First Aid England has produced a poster which highlights 10 self-care tips to help people manage their stress levels.
Click here for more information >
Also available is a workplace specific poster which highlights 6 reasons why mental health at work matters.
Click here for more information >
Schools Resources
Health Information
Here are links to information sources which may be helpful in equipping school children with vital life-skills:
- NHS England – School Resources
- PHE – Every Mind Matters Self Care Tool
- Anna Fraud – Schools in Mind resources
- e-Bug – Infection prevention control
- Santander and Twinkl – Financial Education Resources
- Life skills – Lesson plans for schools to help children understand finances (includes tool kits for adult education)
- NHSGGC – Mental health awareness for children and young people
Student Resources
Free Student Health App
Expert Self Care is an award winning producer of health apps. The Student Health App provides young people with instance access to reliable, relevant and reassuring health and wellbeing information and is free to download.
Click here for more information >
School Resources
The Dr Me Project
The Dr. Me Project is an award-winning, innovative health promotion and widening participation programme which aims to encourage children to become more aware of their own health and provide a basic understanding of the management of common childhood illnesses, whilst also inspiring children into healthcare careers.
Click here for more information >
2023 Report
Menopause at work Report: Government response
The Self Care Forum’s self-care aware fact sheet on menopause was featured in Government’s Response to the Report Menopause and the Workplace.
The report by the House of Commons’ Women and Equalities Commission, published in July 2022 concluded “menopause has been ignored and hidden away for too long. There is nothing shameful about women’s health, or about getting older. Supporting those experiencing menopause makes sense for individuals, for the economy and for society.”
Click here for more information >
2022 Report
Tackling mental wellbeing at work
WHO and the International Labour Organization (ILO) have called for concrete actions to address mental health concerns in the working population.
WHO’s global guidelines on mental health at work recommend actions to tackle risks to mental health such as heavy workloads, negative behaviours, and other factors that create distress at work. For the first time WHO recommends manager training, to build their capacity to prevent stressful work environments and respond to workers in distress.
Click here for more information >
Service-user Resource
Healthinote – health information platform
Misinformation and poor access to reliable health information leads to avoidable harm and increased costs. To help address these issues, the Cognitant Group set up Healthinote, a data-driven information prescription platform.
It enables doctors, nurses and pharmacists to prescribe trusted health information to their patients; the Self Care Forum’s fact sheets can now be accessed by more than 3000 GP surgeries via Healthinote.