Feel better, get fitter and earn Skelmersdale Rewards

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Skelmersdale residents are being encouraged to feel better, get fitter, and earn rewards with the release of a smartphone app.  Residents of Skelmersdale can now use the BetterPoints app to track their walking, running or cycling and by doing so, earn points to cash in for high street shopping vouchers – or donate their rewards to charity. Rewards can also be earned for volunteering time with local groups.

The BetterPoints app has been introduced by Well Skelmersdale as part of its drive to improve health in the town, and is supported by NHS West Lancashire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), Active West Lancs and West Lancs CVS.

The BetterPoints app rewards participants for being active up to 150 minutes a week because this is the basic level of exercise that the NHS says adults should do to be healthy. It aims to get people to the point where they want to do more and take control of their personal health.

Mike Maguire, Chief Officer at NHS West Lancashire CCG, said:  ‘The role of exercise shouldn’t be underestimated in its contribution towards maintaining a healthy body and mind.  Exercising doesn’t have to involve expensive gym visits and equipment, it can simply mean walking the school run rather than using the car.

‘We hope that this innovative new app will support Skelmersdale residents who wish to make changes to their lifestyle by becoming more active and hopefully in turn will lead to people feeling less need to visit their GP.’

Dan Gipple, CEO of BetterPoints Ltd, said: ‘Obesity contributes to a wide range of health problems such as heart disease, cancer, asthma and depression. The health system is struggling and much of this struggle could be alleviated if people just adapted their behaviour a little for the better: a little more walking and exercise; a little less alcohol; a little healthier eating. This would make a big difference for everyone’

To start feeling better, getting fitter and earning Skelmersdale Rewards, download the app today! Available via the App Store or on Google Play.

For further details please contact West Lancs CVS on email: enquiries@wlcvs.org or ring 01695-733737 or visit skelmersdalerewards.betterpoints.uk

 

Carers Support Bulletin – Oct-Nov

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The latest Carers Support Bulletin has just been published.  It has lots of useful information for carers including local support groups, information on local organisations and dates for your diary.  You can read it here.

New Autumn training programme

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The new Autumn training programme has just been published.  Find out more here and book your place today!

Dig In newsletter – July

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The Dig in Newsletter has just been published by the CVS Community Food Growing project.  You can read it here.

Carers Support Bulletin: Aug-Sept 17

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The CVS Carers Support project has published its Summer Newsletter. It has lots of useful information for carers including local support groups, information on local organisations and dates for your diary. Read it here.

‘Level Crossing’ project

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The ‘Level Crossing’ project has run for the past 18 months as an intervention project to support local people diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes who struggle to make behaviour changes to prevent further health problems. West Lancs CVS has been working in partnership with Skelmersdale Community Food Initiative and the University of Central Lancashire.

The Level Crossing project has been training people across West Lancashire as health champions and local connectors to sources of help, and has now trained 45 people as fully qualified health champions.  A further 21 individuals have completed a short course on how to promote health.

The Level Crossing twitter account has been posting news and health tips (@levelcrossingwl), and the project now has a webpage with details of the health champion role and a story of change – it only needs to start with one person!

For more information, go to www.wlcvs.org/level-crossing

Dr Dawne Gurbutt, Clinical Lead for Interprofessional Education, Faculty of Clinical and Biomedical Sciences, University of Central Lancashire, says “This was a complex project involving community engagement and liaison across a wide geographical area of West Lancashire. Whilst maintaining a focus on the key issues that the project sought to address, West Lancashire CVS was able to utilise its role as an umbrella organisation to maximise other links and enhance the project in various ways via establishing connections, mapping against other projects and creating an interface between this and other projects which was mutually beneficial.

The links made via West Lancashire CVS and the willingness to listen, engage and adapt led to some good insights into the area, as well as the development of training which was fit for purpose for the client group and a sustained engagement across the community for the duration of the project. This project has given good insights into the locality, the communities and the challenges of provision and has taken a solution-focused approach to developing initiatives.

There is scope to build not only on the project, but on the connections and links which were developed around this piece of work”.