Integrated Health Awards 2007
Each year, we run our Integrated Health Awards to shine a spotlight on projects and practitioners with an innovative approach to health and wellbeing. Explore the shortlist of entrants soon.
We have drawn up this year's shortlist from dozens of entries. The overall winner is being announced on 20th March, at a special ceremony in London.The projects here cover an enormous range - from work with children with special needs, to innovative approaches to cancer and mental health, to promoting lifelong fitness and helping people manage chronic illness.
What unites all the projects is the recognition that people respond best when they have had a say in their treatment. Whether a patient is struggling to learn to live in society with their ADHD, or isolated by back pain, or coping with an acute illness, they will have a better quality of life, and in many cases recover more quickly, when they are treated with a whole-person approach.
As our shortlist demonstrates, our bodily and mental health needs are deeply interconnected, and to treat either, we need to consider both.
The Shortlist
The shortlisted projects are:
UK Award:
- The Women's Service - an acute mental health service in Purley, near London
- Court Thorn Surgery - a GP practice near Penrith, Cumbria
- Family Action Support Team - a nurse-led support service for families with children experiencing behavioural difficulties
- The Community Health Centre - a healthy living centre in Waltham Forest, London
- The Haven - a palliative care charity in Blantyre
- The Fatigue Management Service - a service for cancer patients at St Ann's hospice, Manchester
- Park Attwood - a doctor-led clinic for serious illness offering conventional and complementary approaches, Worcestershire
- Midlothian Sure Start - support for families with small children in Midlothian
Wales Award:
- Plas Y Mor: Integrated Housing Care and Support Scheme - integrated housing for the over 55s in Carmarthenshire
- The Condition Management Programme and Pathways to Work- helping chronically ill people back to work in Bridgend
- Velindre Cancer Centre - offering non-surgical cancer services in Cardiff
Northern Ireland Award:
- Little Orchids - a nursery for pre-school children with special needs
- Mater Green Gym - offering gardening for those recovering from mental distress in Belfast
- Voices self-management programme - a quality of life course for mental health patients in Belfast
The Prizes
There are three awards on offer this year:
- the UK award (sponsored by Nelsons, the UK’s leading manufacturer of natural medicines) with prize money of £5000
- the Wales award (sponsored by the Welsh Assembly Government) with prize money of £2500
- the Northern Ireland award (sponsored by the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety, Northern Ireland), with prize money of £2500. This has already been announced - with the prize going to an exceptional nursery, Little Orchids.
The Awards Criteria
These were the criteria for taking part in this year's awards. If you know of a project that meets these criteria, why not encourage them to enter next year's competition, to be launched in April. Sign up for our newsletter to receive updates on our awards and other FIH news.
- Promoting healthy living and healthy societies; incorporating preventative approaches such as advocating a healthy diet and regular physical activity.
- Creating supportive and sustainable environments in, for example, the workplace, the community and schools so that healthy choices are easy to make and accessible.
- Looking at the whole person and taking into account the effects of lifestyle, environment and emotional wellbeing on a person’s health.
- Having an emphasis on self-management and self-care. Supporting and empowering people to take an active role in their own care so they can exercise more control over their own health and their environments, and make choices conducive to health.
- Demonstrating involvement of users in the planning, development and evaluation of the project or intervention.
- Bringing together safe, effective and accessible approaches to integrated health including conventional medical science, complementary health and health promotion to enable populations to lead healthier lives.