Empowering Service Users of our Health Services through a Health Literacy Programme

Description

Feedback from clinicians in our Chronic Disease Hubs highlighted several key areas where patients struggled with understanding and managing their chronic conditions.

To address these needs, we worked with service users and community partners to develop a six-week programme to improve health literacy amongst our patients in community settings. We had good participation from older persons and those living with chronic conditions.

The success of this project relied on a collaborative approach, bringing together both internal and external stakeholders, all working towards a shared goal of improving health literacy among individuals with chronic conditions. A clear and structured methodology was necessary to ensure the project’s success, and thus a working group was established to provide direction and focus.

The pilot focused on areas with a high prevalence of chronic disease, and identifying suitable community organisations for collaboration was a priority. These organisations were crucial in helping deliver the programmes effectively. It was equally important to ensure that the local facilities had the capacity to integrate the programme into their existing services.

We designed this programme to be flexible and address the needs of each participant through active patient partnership. A team of professionals from various areas, including health promotion officers, literacy support both local and regional, and clinicians, community partners worked together to ensure the programme addressed the community’s needs.

The programme took place over six weeks. Each week, participants explored different topics, such as understanding prescriptions, managing long-term health conditions, and improving communication with doctors. The course was interactive, allowing participants to share their challenges, which helped shape the content, ensuring it remained relevant and valuable to everyone.
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Capturing the voice of the service user or patient was central in the development of this programme.
Although the programme was delivered on a relatively small scale, the participants shared with us the impact it had on their lives, empowering them to engage more confidently with their healthcare providers. By fostering a sense of ownership over their health journey, participants were encouraged to question their clinicians, voice their concerns, and understand that it is both their right and responsibility to do so. This shift in mind-set is a critical step towards improving self-management and ensuring that our service users feel more confident and supported in managing their health.

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Aim of Initiative

The aim of this initiative was to work with service users and community partners to develop a six-week programme to improve health literacy amongst our older population and those living with chronic conditions. This enables them to be more active partners in their own healthcare.

Who is it aimed at

while the initiative is open to all service users in our area, it was particularly suitable to older patients and those with chronic conditions.

3 Steps critical to success

1. Collaboration between HSE and Community Partners
2. Designing the programme based on the identified needs in the community
3. Providing guest speakers based on feedback from the group

3 Challenges in Planning / Delivery

1. Identifying a suitable co-hort of people who would benefit from this programme
2. Advertising the programme in a way that attracted potential participants and explained the benefits in a way that people could relate to
3. scaling up this project and extending it in other areas

3 Outcomes / Benefits

1. We evaluated this programme and participants reported that they felt better able to discuss their concerns with health professionals
2. Participants felt better able to manage their own health conditions
3. This programme has been extended to other groups