Dorset health check figures 'skewed by being offered to council staff'

She says it would be better to concentrate on areas in Dorset where the wider public are more likely to gain from the checks and find new ways to get to difficult-to-reach groups.

The council leader says the take up of general health checks is running at only 23 per cent in the BCP area, compared to 45 per cent in the Dorset Council area.

Turning to the county wide director of public health, Sam Crowe, she criticised his description of the variance as “slightly lower.”

Said Cllr Slade at the county-wide joint public health board: “That’s not slight – that’s dreadful.”

She said that from her examination of the figures it was apparent that some primary care networks, usually GP-based, were not doing as they should be in offering the checks, while in the Dorset Council area there was a wider range of events to reach people.

She said she was bothered by the fact that the report to the committee said that staff from learning and development at BCP Council were offered the health checks.

“I would suggest that people who are working in learning and development are not the people who should be the prime risk… if a lot of money has been spent on engaging with council staff to get the numbers up in BCP that would be very concerning because, whilst I accept that people who work for the council may have some risk factors, I would like to have seen community events in BCP.

“We have got workforce and community events in Dorset but the only reference we have got  in BCP was a narrative from a staff event.”

She said that given the relatively high ethnic mix in the BCP area and the number of people who did not have English as their first language had anyone looked at ways of addressing these communities to take part in the health checks. She suggested that different methods might need to be looked at to address the issues- possibly going out into the community and meeting specific groups.

Mr Crowe said although learning and development had been mentioned in the report many of the checks were being carried out at council depots involving blue collar workers such as waste operatives and that several cases of undiagnosed diabetes and high blood pressure had been found as a result of the checks. He admitted that the report could have been worded better.

The director said he did agree with Cllr Slade’s point about inequalities and said the health service ought to consider different ways of addressing how they dealt with invitations for checks.

“That is something for the Live Well Dorset outreach service to think about and we will be challenging them to think very differently about how we find, and reach, different parts of the population we don’t reach traditionally,” he said.

Cllr Slade said that the report could have been clearer but welcomed the fact that depot staff had been offered checks and it had been successful.

Committee chair Philip Brown said he worried that whether the checks were being done or not, in some areas, seemed to come down to whether of not health staff at primary care level were interested in offering the service.

“How much are our hands tied in trying to encourage them to do something which is really important for their patients?” he said.

A November meeting had been told that in many areas of Dorset the “midlife Mot” for those 40-plus was 'hit and miss' although should be offered to all.

In some cases local Primary Care Networks had said they do not have the resources to deliver the checks.

The checks look at blood pressure, weight, lifestyle and cholesterol, with a known correlation between these health issues and poorer areas.

Mr Crowe said that around 3 per cent of the 40-74 age group were likely to have problems in wealthier areas, compared to 20per cent, or more, in places where people were struggling.

The director said in East Dorset, Mid Dorset and Weymouth and Portland the service was “patchy” and he would like to see more checks carried out in North Bournemouth, Central Bournemouth and Bournemouth East.

Mr Crowe said that although checks should be offered in all areas, every five years, there was no national “call and recall” system in place and whether the checks were carried out was often down to the goodwill, or capacity of GP practices, to arrange them.

More information about the NHS health checks can be found on the Live Well Dorset website - https://www.livewelldorset.co.uk/healthcare-professionals/nhs-health-checks/ The organisation also have a Facebook page where it shares health information, including where it is running health check drop-in sessions - https://www.facebook.com/lwdorset