That flier started it all in 2011. When I got to the part that asked ‘Do you want to help people to live healthy active later lives’ the passion I have always had to support people to address their health challenges immediately triggered within me. I became a Croydon Heath Champion and through this programme, developed an idea for a product that addressed an identified problem among people aged over 50 years in the Thornton Health area that contributed towards health inequalities.
From research and anecdotal evidence it was discovered that generally people aged over 50 years felt they are not respected and are at the mercy of GPs and other clinicians. Further they felt they were not given the one-to-one attention they deserve as GPs seemed to consult more with their computers. These make communication difficult resulting in some not being able to explain their ailments while others forgot what they had gone to consult about and end up leaving the surgery without getting the quality care that they need. With those findings it was concluded that lack of communication is one of the major causes of health inequalities.
I decided to develop a tool which would facilitate communication between a diverse set of health providers and patients, in the hope that better communication would tackle an aspect of health inequality that seemed to concern so many patients. I set up Wellbeing you as a vehicle to develop the tool and provide a range of other services designed to help elderly people to take more control over their health and wellbeing. Wellbeing You Ltd not for profit was registered with Companies House on 19th December 2013.
The next task was to develop a fitting logo. I decided to ask my daughter’s friend, Emilie Olivera with whom she had gone to the same school while we lived in The Gambia and had become close to our family. In fact, she is now part of our family. By this time Emily was also living and working as a professional artistic designer and was delighted to volunteer to do the logo for us based on what Wellbeing You stands for. The draft was pretested among a cross-section of health professionals and residents before it was put into use.
“My purpose is to help others lead longer and healthier lives” says Sylvia Wachuku-King, Founder and Project Manager of Wellbeing You. You can read more about her here.
helping Others Make the Most of GP Sessions
“My purpose is to help others lead longer and healthier lives”
Sylvia Wachuku-King, Croydon Health Champion
Sylvia Wachuku-King grew up in Freetown, Sierra Leone. She moved to the UK in 2003, under the highly-skilled migrant programme, with many years of experience in international development, public health and teaching science. She immediately vowed to use this experience to help others.
Sylvia shared “Working in senior positions one could often get distracted and fail to understand the needs of local people.” She went on to explain that organisational demands and company politics often blocked good intentions. With this in mind, Sylvia took a different approach to her work in the UK, vowing to engage at the grassroots in delivering front-line services to local people.
Luckily, Sylvia was able to secure her ‘dream job’ in London. This gave her the opportunity to apply her thinking as an Organisational Development Officer and then as a Community Engagement Officer in the London Borough of Southwark. In both roles Sylvia was able to guide small groups of local residents, encouraging them to become stronger and more self-sufficient. Sadly, despite her best efforts, funding dried up in 2011, requiring Sylvia to take a different path. That’s when she became a Croydon Health Champion and acquired her knowledge in how to understand and improve health outcomes.
Sylvia held focused discussions with local residents about their health care and listened carefully to what they had to say. This enabled her to understand and appreciate that they did not always make the most of their visits to local GPs and other health professionals. She found that outcomes could be improved by empowering patients and their carers to prepare for their visits, ask better questions, express their needs more clearly and make their own notes. Immediately, Sylvia got hold of a handy question prompt sheet and developed it into a GP Partnership shared decision making tool.
The tool has since come on in leaps and bounds, with inputs from different communities and support from the Croydon Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and endorsement from the One Croydon Alliance Proactive and Preventative Board. The updated version will enable patients to become more equal partners in their own care and develop harmonious relationships with those looking after them. Sylvia hopes that “it could make a real difference. Patients and their families can really get involved in their care before, during and after consultations. Those using the tool will become better at self-caring which I believe will improve their overall level of health and well-being.”
Could it help you and your loved ones? If you’d like to know more please contact Sylvia on 07870 508 790 or [email protected].
To broaden her perspective community involvement work Sylvia supported the causes of other organisations:
She has supported a Macmillan Cancer stall. On another occasion with resources of both Wellbeing You and the Heart Foundation she supported the July 2018 Summerfest event of Prince of Wales Alumni Association POWAA.
At the end of the Health Champions Training Sylvia acquired the Royal Society of Public Health Level 2 in Understanding Health Improvement. To further strengthen her capacity to support patients with multiple health conditions to whom the GP Partnership Tool would be particularly useful, Sylvia successfully pursued Tutor Training in the Long Term Conditions SelfManagement Programme in 2018. She has since tutored two 6 week courses in Croydon that enabled her acquire Tutor Accreditation and now better equipped to lead Wellbeing You in supporting Croydon long term health condition programme.
The knowledge and skills acquired from those and others have helped in managing the affairs of Wellbeing You.
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KINGS IMPROVEMENT SCIENCE
Since 2017 she has also volunteered with the Kings College London Patient and Public Involvement Group.This is what one of her coleagues said.
Involving people who have personal experience of using NHS services in South London is a priority for King’s Improvement Science (KIS). The KIS team includes a patient and public involvement (PPI) coordinator, dedicated to supporting the involvement of patients, service users, their families and members of the public, in KIS projects.
Sylvia has been actively involved as a public member with KIS since 2017. Starting when she was involved alongside other South London residents to help develop and guide our PPI strategy. This strategy process was later developed into a conference poster with the help of Sylvia and presented at the 2nd UK Implementation Science Research Conference. Through to speaking at our resources launch event.
Improvement Science aims to demonstrate the best and most appropriate methods that can be used to improve the quality and safety of health services. For example, Sylvia played a key role in the MySurgery project, which developed an app that aims to empower surgical patients and their carers to play a role in optimising the safety of surgical care.
Sylvia took a leading role in helping co-write our PPI Guidance Document, which aims to offer guidance and information to staff working within the Centre for Implementation Science on how to carry out effective and successful PPI.
If you would like to know more about King’s Improvement Science, please visit our website.
Want to get involved? Speak with Sylvia about her experience and feel welcome to email Len, the Patient and Public Involvement Coordinator for King’s Improvement Science at [email protected].
