Healthwatch Norfolk was asked by Norfolk County Council’s Public Health team to gather the public’s opinion, uptake and experiences of NHS Health Checks in Norfolk.
The aim was to develop a greater understanding of why uptake is low and what could be done to improve this.
Based on what we heard from people, we made recommendations including:
1. Increase communication and information about NHS Health Checks.
2. Make invitation templates available in a variety of formats (e.g. text and email) and include more information on NHS Health Checks in the invitation, such as the other locations (e.g., pharmacies, community venues etc) and times NHS Health Checks are available.
3. More invitations should be sent by GP practices and a range of ways to invite patients should be used- GP practices should invite patients to an NHS Health Check, in line with the patient’s communication preferences (e.g. text message, email, letter etc). Multiple invitations or reminders should be used to increase uptake.
4. More staff training into how to give personalised advice to help facilitate behaviour change. Staff should be made more aware of the barriers to behaviour change and consider these when giving specific advice and be trained in how to proactively deliver key messages.
