England

ExtraCare for the third age

ExtraCare offers supported housing for 2,750 older people in the Midlands and North-West.  Their wellbeing project employs registered nurses to help residents be proactive about their health, from making food and lifestyle choices to early detection of illness.

The Sara Lee Trust

The Trust provides complementary therapies free of charge to patients living with cancer, motor neurone disease or HIV/AIDS in Hastings and Rother.  The therapies include acupuncture, aromatherapy, craniosacral therapy, massage, reflexology, relaxation/visualisation, shiatsu and yoga.  They provide 2,500 treatments a year - and also provide support for carers.

Escape from the streets for Bristol's female sex workers

One25 provides a holistic outreach service to female street-based sex workers in Bristol.  Many are trapped in cycles of abuse and need support until they can finally break free.  The service provides healthy eating, hygiene facilities for the homeless, alarms and condoms as well as massage, CBT and opportunities for creativity. 

Wellspring Healthy Living Centre

Wellspring locates G.P.s, dentists, health visitors, health trainers and pharmacists in the same building as a community-run health organisation, providing residents with an integrated and responsive health and wellbeing service.

Women's health in South Tyneside

This project supports women in a deprived area of Tyneside. Many of the services, including counselling, reflexology, massage and homeopathy are provided by volunteers who have themselves been helped by the project to make positive changes to their lives.  The services also offers training in assertiveness and understanding depression.

Positive Images

Positive Images produce health education films made by and for prisoners drawing on prisoners' experiences, learning and aspirations relating to health.  They bring together the best of integrated health practice.

Hoxton Health

Twenty years ago, older people in Hackney created a project to access cheap complementary therapies.  Now with the addition of exercise and swimming classes, it's open to all over 60s in the area.

Northern Ireland

ExtraCare Family Carer Training programme

ExtraCare helps dependent adults to continue to live in their own homes.  Their family carer training programme supports carers to avoid burnout - and also keep the person they are caring for safe.

Green Gyms

The Green Gym is a health scheme run by Conservation Volunteers Northern Ireland.  It offers individuals an outdoor alternative to conventional gyms.  It was initially for people using Day Care Services, but now reaches a much wider audience including women's groups, schools, BME communities as well as the elderly and disadvantaged.

Getting it together

Getting it Together trains young people to teach emotional well-being to their peers.  The accredited programme harnesses the fact that young people are more likely to listen to health messages from people of their own age.

Fit for Life

The Health Promotion Department’s Fit for Life Scheme allows GPs and practice nurses to refer suitable patients to the local leisure centre for supervised exercise programmes. The 15 week exercise plan is specifically designed for the patient by the instructor who has undertaken special training.

Scotland

The Haven

The Haven is a Glasgow-based charity offering free information and emotional support to people affected by life limiting illness such as cancer, MS and motor neurone disease.  Shortlisted by FIH in 2007, they have added new services in the last year, especially around encouraging exercise.

Tayside Healthcare Arts Trust St/Art project

This project offers rehabilitation through creativity to people who have suffered strokes and acquired brain injury.  Working with an artist is highly valued by the participants, and has been shown to improve  mood, self-confidence, communication and compliance with other therapies.

Midlothian Sure Start

Midlothian Sure Start provides services to vulnerable families with very young children.  They were overall winner  of our Integrated Health award 2007.

Pathways to work in Scotland

Pathways to work helps people to manage their health condition and refocus on work.  'Work' may mean paid work, community volunteering, education and training or more constructively used leisure and household time.  Their project is often transformative for people who feared that they might never work again.

Look ok, feel crap?

A sometimes controversial campaign from Depression Alliance Scotland to reach young adults with mood disorders who might not otherwise seek help.  The project includes life skills courses to increase the knowledge and self-confidence of young adults in dealing with these issues.

Wales

Depression busting

The organisation Journeys was created for people who have lived with depression.  It has developed an eight week depression busting course, uniquely delivered by people who have lived through depression themselves.  It takes place in deprived communities in Wales.

Home Ground

Home ground is a psychological, psychsocial and complementary therapy support service for cancer patients and their families, as well as health care professional and volunteers in the cancer field.   The service is offered to people as near to their homes as possible and offers some home visits.

Taking the mountain bus

Age Concern reaches people over 60 who live in rural isolation and aims to improve their mental and physical health. Their specially adapted mini bus covers over 400 miles of rural Montgomeryshire every week.  Friendship, exercise and creative activities help people stay well and avoid depression.

Eco Learning at Eco-Dysgu

Groups of young people and adults learn news skills and receive complementary therapy sessions while helping to regenerate a dilapidated 42 acre farm.  They work on a philosophy of learning to heal, and healing to learn. 

Judges Special Prize

All projects on the shortlist will also be eligible for the Judge's Special Prize.  Also included on the list are a few projects which, while not fully integrated, are exceptional or groundbreaking in one specific area.

Acupuncture in St Albans

The acupuncture service is provided in primary care as an alternative to surgery for people with osteoarthritis of the knee.  The acupuncture gives patients ongoing symptomatic relief  - and is also cheaper than surgical treatment.

Hoxton Health

Hoxton Health is a charity offering a range of low cost complementary therapies, exercise classes and healthy living user groups, to support the health and well-being of people over 60 living in Hackney, London.

The British School of Osteopathy community clinics

Students and tutors at the British School of Osteopathy provide free osteopathic treatment in Southwark, the 12th most disadvantaged borough in the UK.  Thousands are treated, from homeless peole to those with HIV, from the very young to the very old.

The Weathermongers

Sufferers from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease are vulnerable to worsening symptoms during some kinds of weather.  This innovative service uses information gathered by the MET office to warn patients in advance and help them better manage their condition.