Staff at the County Community Hospital in Invergordon have been working hard to find ways to implement the Scottish Government’s Healthy Working Lives (HWL) and Health Promoting Health Service (HPHS) initiatives at their establishment.
And NHS Highland chairman Garry Coutts attended the Easter Ross hospital on Tuesday (December 2) to meet the staff involved and learn more about the projects.
Displays at the launch provided information on a variety of subjects, including smoking cessation and health and nutrition.
The nutritional aspect will include protected meal times for patients, which means that no visitors will be present and a member of staff will provide any assistance they need to eat their meals. It also involves providing healthy options in the staff canteen.
Staff were offered health checks and the chance to attend taster sessions on complimentary therapies related to stress reduction.
The launch also coincided with the official opening of the hospital’s new breastfeeding room, which will enable people visiting the building to breastfeed their babies in comfort.
Mr Coutts said he was delighted that these two initiatives were now being implemented at the Invergordon hospital.
He said: “I am always pleased to see us introducing projects that are aimed at improving the health of both our staff and of communities in the Highlands.”
Public Health Practitioner in Mid Highland, Susan Russel, explained that HWL looked largely at the health of staff and HPHS was concerned with the health of patients, staff and the surrounding community.
She added that it was felt that the two initiatives sat very comfortably together so they were running them side by side.
Ms Russel said: “The idea behind HWL is that we make working environments healthy so they are safe and health promoting.
“It’s about having policies in place, having a group looking at the health of staff and doing a staff survey to see what they feel the health issues are.
“These initiatives are being run by the staff for the staff and patients.”
She added that the aims of the scheme were to increase staff access to services for occupational health, health improvement and health and safety, to reduce sickness absence rates and to improve productivity.
As part of the launch, all staff were issued with copies of an anonymous questionnaire and it is hoped that the hospital will achieve the HWL bronze award by the end of March next year.
Ms Russel said the HPHS initiative was aimed at supporting development and existing practices for health improvement within the NHS in Scotland.
She said: “The thinking behind HPHS is that every healthcare contact is a health improvement opportunity.
“The programme is designed to ensure that healthcare encounters with patients in acute settings include targeted action to improve patients’ health and prevent future ill-health.”
All NHS Highland staff will be affiliated to an HWL project and the Board has handed over responsibility for this to all operational units.
So far, Mid Highland CHP, which includes Invergordon, has launched schemes at the Belford Hospital in Fort William, the Ross Memorial Hospital in Dingwall and at the hospitals at Broadford and Portree on Skye.
