Food for Health Strategy

Wendy Shepley, Health Improvement Officer, explains how the FEAST Group (which stands for Food in East Lindsey) was formed, its work on the Food For Health Strategy and how they encouraged over 3000 people to attend an event called the "The Big Feast" which was held in November 2004 at Butlin’s in Skegness.

Summary

FEAST was formed in 2003 and has members including Health Improvement Officers, Trading Standards Officers, Environmental Health Officers, Community Development Officers, a Dental Health Officer, a local catering college and many others who represent various parts of the food and health industry in the area.

The group’s aim is to protect and improve the health and well-being of the community and assist the further development of the local food and other related sectors through the promotion of safe, sustainable and healthy food for everyone.

The Strategy has been adopted by the Health and Well being Theme Group of the East Lindsey Local Strategic Partnership, who will oversee it’s implementation. The FEAST Group will be responsible for implementing the strategy through the development of a task group for each priority. Each priority task group will have a designated lead officer and will be supported by members of the FEAST Group.

The Food For Health Strategy was formally launched on Thursday16th June 2005 at Bellamy’s restaurant in Skegness, which is a training restaurant connected to First College. Around fifty people attended the launch from a variety of public, private and voluntary sector organisations including Headteachers from local schools, Women’s Institute, Nursery staff, Councillors, Hospital Catering Managers, Public Health, Social Services, Healthy Schools, Trading Standards, etc.

Project Name: Food For Health Strategy

Project Start Date: September 2003

Project Location Type: Rural

Project Origins and original aims/Objectives and purpose of the project:

The origin of the project began at an event held by Sustain in 2003, which raised the question whether East Lindsey needed a food strategy. It was decided to hold a conference and anyone who had an interest in food was invited. Over 40 people attended including representatives from residential homes, Taste of Lincolnshire, Primary Care Trusts, Lincoln University, allotment growers, and local businesses. The delegates were asked two questions; whether East Lindsey should have a food group and if it needed a food for health strategy; the answer was yes to both.

East Lindsey has several unique factors that lead the delegates to reach this conclusion.

Demographically East Lindsey has a higher than average population over the age of 65, in addition to this it has pockets of high deprivation alongside areas of relative affluence. People on low incomes are more likely to suffer from heart disease, strokes and some cancers and many of these diseases can be directly attributed to poor diets. Large numbers of the population also live in bed and breakfast accommodation that has few or no cooking facilities and others live in caravans – again many without suitable facilities to cook healthy nutritious food.

East Lindsey is also quite sparsely populated with a population of 130,455 spread over 700 square miles. The subsequent limited transport options compounds the fact that many people are isolated and have difficulty getting to shops that are often many miles from their homes. Finally the area suffers from seasonal employment, with many people relying on the tourism industry during the summer months particularly in the seaside towns of Skegness and Mablethorpe – however come the winter unemployment is a major problem. However, it is also worth noting that East Lindsey is a large food growing area.

Bearing these facts in mind the group decided that it was important to establish a food for health strategy for East Lindsey and the following aim and objectives were set:

Aim

The FEAST Group aims to protect and improve the health and well-being of the community and assist the further development of the local food and other related sectors through the promotion of safe, sustainable and healthy food for everyone.

Objectives

To facilitate increased knowledge and motivation, in order for people to make informed choices to enable them to develop and maintain healthier lifestyles.
To develop effective and appropriate partnerships between public, private and voluntary sector organisations in order to assist in the implementation of the strategy and action plans.
To obtain the commitment from the community, local businesses, agencies, managers and councillors to support and assist the implementation of the strategy and action plans
To encourage and support local services and providers to offer healthy, enjoyable, local and appropriate foods
To provide consistent accurate information about food issues and food safety
To enable the provision of education and training for individuals and organisations to encourage and facilitate improved nutrition and food safety
To recognise, acknowledge and publicise examples of good practice, associated with healthy eating and lifestyles
To support the work of those agencies whose responsibilities include the enforcement of relevant legislation and codes of practice
To facilitate and encourage effective monitoring, evaluation and review of the work of the FEAST project

The following priority areas were agreed upon and would be tackled through the development of task groups:

Public awareness of healthy eating & lifestyles
Safeguarding food & consumer safety
Public provision of healthy food (in schools, hospitals, breakfast clubs, food outlets, retailers)
Promotion of local foods
Regional economic development

Organisations Currently Involved

East Lincolnshire Primary Care Trust – Health Improvement Facilitator, and Community Dental
Health Officer
East Lindsey District Council – Health Improvement Officers and
Environmental Health Officers from the Food Safety Section.
Lincolnshire County Council - Trading Standards and Community
Development
First College, Skegness – local catering college

In addition to those individuals listed above the work of the group has also been disseminated to another 20 people and organisations for their comments and input. The database of contacts is constantly growing and expanding and we hope to have many more members in the near future, either on the Feast Group or on one or more of the priority task groups.

Target Audience

Local communities and businesses in East Lindsey, including the public, private and voluntary sector.

Methodology

In order to devise the strategy The FEAST Group used their knowledge gained from involvement in other strategies, referred to the Food Vision website and the work of Food Initiatives in Greater Nottingham project. The strategy is also based on the Lincolnshire Food And Health Policy, which was developed in 1996 but not implemented.

The strategy will contribute to the LSP overall vision, which is to ‘bring about a sustainable quality of life’ and to the vision for the health and well being theme group, which is ‘to empower and enable everyone in East Lindsey to make informed, appropriate choices with regard to their improved health and well-being’. Similarly, the strategy will contribute to the achievement in the delivery of the corporate vision, aims and priorities of East Lindsey District Council and other partner organisations, the National Service Frameworks for Older People, Coronary Heart Disease, Cancer, Diabetes, Mental Health and Children & Young People, The NHS Plan 2000, The Public Health Strategy for the East Midlands, Saving Lives: Our Healthier Nation and Choosing Health: Making Healthy Choices Easier, 2004

Funding

The FEAST Group does not currently have specific/core funding but relies on in kind contributions and one off contributions of money from the partners. It is recognised that funding needs to be sourced, which is likely to be through the member organisations and through applying to external funding organisations. The FEAST Group are seeking long-term commitment and funding to sustain the project and the activities that it creates.

The total cost of the Big Feast event in November 2004, not including the vast amount of in kind contributions, was £17,488.00. The FEAST Group raised income from the event through hire charges for the food stalls and the commission from books signed by Antony Worrall Thompson.

Wendy & her colleague Clare Wakeman spend approximately 20% of their time on the FEAST project.

Recruitment

Wendy qualified as an Environmental Health Officer in 1995, and her degree included the subject of Health Promotion. In addition to this Wendy has been involved in many projects both at East Lindsey and at her previous employers involving health and community initiatives.

Clare Wakeman has worked within the catering industry for 29 years. Clare’s qualifications are in Catering Management, she also holds an Adult Education Training Certificate and a diploma in Nutrition. In recent years she has spent time developing and promoting better catering practices to include food safety, healthy eating and reducing passive smoking in East Lindsey’s 2000 plus registered food premises. Clare is currently studying for a Public Health/Environmental Health (Hons) Degree.

Both Wendy and Clare are employed as Health Improvement Officers at East Lindsey District Council and their core work is Health Promotion, thus allowing them the time to work on this project.

Activities / Sessions

To promote the FEAST project and the developing strategy the group decided to hold an event in November 2004. In May the planning began with contact being made to Butlin’s at Skegness. The Group were very fortunate in that the venue would be available for free on the proviso that Butlin’s would supply refreshments. In addition to this East Lindsey District Council were able to provide up to £15,000 towards the pilot event.

It was decided to have three areas on the day:
Market Place – Health Information Stands – in addition to the stand each organisation being represented were required to provide some form of activity

Examples of the stands involved were:

Milk in Schools
Breast Feeding Awareness
Weight Watchers
Blood pressure testing – supplied by local doctors
Sustain
Primary Care Trust

In all more than 40 stands were set up.

Local Producers Food Market

Over 20 stalls were set up offering a variety of products ranging from local chocolate, to honey, fruit and vegetables and meat.

The FEAST group had contacts with the Lincoln City Football Club and although it was unfortunate that they were unable to attend, their Healthy Habits Team did attend to talk to schools about nutrition and exercise. One local school took part in a football demonstration. The seven schools that attended the event were put into a prize draw. One school won a 6-week course for football training by Lincoln City Football Club. All the other six schools received a day of football training.

Healthy Older People (HOP) provided extend exercise to music demonstrations, which are suitable for all but especially good for older people and people with disabilities. The HOP group brought along 60 older people to give the demonstration and Antony Worrall Thompson participated in the exercise demonstration.

In addition to these 3 main areas there were several other activities:

Cookery demonstrations by celebrity chef, Antony Worrall Thompson.
Cookery demonstrations following a "cook –off" prior to the day where caterers and members of the public were invited to devise a healthy 2-course meal to be cooked for 4, for £10. Three of the entrants coked their meal at the event. All participants were awarded with a certificate for taking part.
Food trail for schools with questions, which encouraged children to ask for information from the various stalls and stands that were there.
Colouring competition for primary school children. Again this had been organised before the event.
Workshops, aimed at businesses and members of the public. For example: Environmental Health, and Trading Standards, diabetes, dietician.
Butchers who had met the new licensing arrangements and adopted higher standards than the legal requirements were also invited to attend to receive their Food and Health Awards, which were presented by Antony Worrall Thompson. The awards aim to promote better practices in food hygiene, healthy catering practices and the provision of smoke free clean air.

Other Resources

Venue: for this size of event, and the time of year the event took place a venue that was undercover was necessary.

Good public announcement system needs to be in place.

Advertising, posters, leaflets all need to be printed and distributed.

Evaluation

The event at Butlin’s was excellent and there is a great deal of enthusiasm by the Group’s members. Wendy has written a report about the work so far (see attached) and it is intended for a task group to be created for each priority. Each task group will be required to produce an action plan with targets ad performance indicators for the priority, based on a standard template, which will be produced by the FEAST Group.

Other FEAST Activities

Other activities that the FEAST group members have been involved in include:

Food and Health Award (similar to the Heartbeat Award)
Clean Air Award – smoke free air
National Food Safety Week including talks in schools
Where schools have approached the group, lessons have been given on food labelling and hygiene
issues.
A lunchbox scheme in a local primary school
Food labelling study
Provision of food hygiene training including low cost training to the voluntary sector, for example older people’s lunch club staff

Sustainability

The Food For Health Strategy is part of the Community Strategy developed by East Lindsey Local Strategic Partnership and thus there is long-term commitment towards it. Wendy & Clare’s roles are permanent but they have a wide remit including other health issues such as accident prevention. However more financial resources are needed to support the projects within the strategy and to ensure that the strategy itself works. Short-term project funding is not always the answer and Wendy is determined that core/long term funding needs to be directed into the strategy in order for it to be successful and sustained.

Lessons learnt

Strategy

It takes time! And more time!
Very important to carry out research.
Use your local Public Health Observatories, they can provide very useful data about your area.
Make sure you include all key organisations – NHS, Local Authorities, Universities, Local Strategic Partnerships, are all-important. Also the Economic Regeneration sections/organisations are also vital.
You need keen, energetic, enthusiastic people to be involved.
You need leadership; this Group are in the fortunate position that Wendy & Clare’s core roles are to promote health in the area including healthy eating.
You also need support from upper-management and councillors. Get them on board.
Core group. Many people will initially take an interest however not all will be involved or need to be involved throughout the strategy making process, but keep them informed their skills and knowledge will be required at some stage – don’t lose sight of who this strategy is for.
Engage with the community and remember that the strategy is there for their benefit and should be implemented according to their needs.

The Big FEAST 2004

Make sure that your public announcement system works effectively. Unfortunately there were some problems and reliance on system resulted in less signs being put up and without a fully functioning PA system some workshops and events were affected.
If schools are invited make sure that the teachers are fully aware that they are still needed. 100’s of kids running around can cause confusion! Buddies are required to accompany schools from start to finish, otherwise engage the schools as part of the event and invite only small numbers of competition finalists, etc.
Butlin’s were very generous in allowing the event to take place for free however since stall owners were restricted in selling ready to eat foods, some decided it was not worth attending. Also consider the timing of the event, some local business are not able to provide products year round due to them being out of season.
Although Antony Worrall Thompson did cost a substantial sum of money, his presence was worth it.
Make sure you use the right people for the right job! A manager maybe skilled at devising procedures and policies but may not be the right person for organising children at Butlin’s. The whole project needs to be project managed and led by one individual that engages with all partners effectively.

Remember everyone’s got their own agenda, their own skills, and knowledge, and a message that they need to get across. Let them do it, but co-ordinate it, and realise that they are only involved because of what’s in it for them and the communities/issues that they serve. Aren’t we all?

Future Developments

The Food For Health Strategy was launched on Thursday 16th June 2005 as part of National Food Safety Week. Over 50 relevant organisations from a wide variety of backgrounds attended the launch. The launch included four presentations including a public health perspective on food and health in the area, a dieticians role and service limitations (thus the need to work together), the links to the Local Strategic partnership and finally an overview of FEAST and the strategy with a clear message about what we expect from partners and how the strategy will be implemented.

Over the coming months the task groups will be set up and a template action plan created. The FEAST group will continue to work on our core work, existing projects and projects in the pipeline. The strategy will be publicised more widely.

Name: Wendy Shepley or Clare Wakeman
Position: Health Improvement Officer
Address:
East Lindsey District Council
Environmental Services
Tedder Hall
Manby Park
Louth, Lincolnshire
LN11 8UP
Telephone: 01507 601111
Fax: 01507 328412

Email address: wendy.shepley@e-lindsey.gov.uk
clare.wakeman@e-lindsey.gov.uk

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