Cheshire and Wirral Partnership (CWP) Trust’s Living Well bus has been a huge success in engaging with vulnerable people and has performed a brilliant 18,500 health screening tests to over 5,000 individuals since June 2022.
The service, commissioned by the Cheshire and Merseyside ICB Covid vaccination team, has also given over 17,000 Covid vaccines. Results from the health checks showed 3573 (19%) were outside the healthy range.
High blood pressure and high cholesterol account for 70% of results outside expected healthy range. All results from tests are referred directly to the patient’s GP – with results outside healthy range referred as a separate notification to ensure appropriate follow up can be supported.
CWP worked with each local Place to identify areas of greatest need, such as deprived communities, homeless shelters, mental health crisis cafe’s, learning disability support hubs, traveller communities and refugee and asylum seeker communities.
Three specialist buses, fully clinically led by health and care professionals, are fully accessible, solar powered and have two dedicated clinic spaces, a sink, small bed and clinical waste storage.
Jayne Wood, Director of Vaccine and Testing Operations Cheshire and Merseyside, said:
“Whether it’s through COVID-19 vaccination, physical health checks or mental wellbeing support, Living well demonstrates what can be achieved by bringing services to the heart of historically seldom-heard communities, combined with a meaningful engagement strategy that focuses on listening and learning.”
For more information on the Living Well bus, visit https://www.cwp.nhs.uk/livingwellservice