Supporting positive health outcomes through leisure and culture trusts.

Abstract

A skilled and competent workforce is imperative to tackling health inequalities. The opportunities for health-based conversations and interventions are increasing due to the breadth of services and multi-disciplinary services being delivered in community assets, available through trusts and social enterprises.Sporta member leisure and culture trusts are all charitable social enterprises based within communities, many operating facilities and services on behalf of local authorities. Sporta (The Sports and Recreation Trusts Association) have partnered with Health Education West Midlands and Public Health England West Midlands to scope out the workforce development needs of Sporta members' 55,000 staff through a pilot skills audit. Many of the trust's workforce are frontline and engage with tens of millions of customers per year. Therefore, the opportunities for Making Every Contact Count (MECC)-based conversations, supportive chats, specialist advice on specific conditions or a welcoming cup of tea are apparent and continual.The pilot skills audit evidenced great commitment from trusts investing in the skills of their workforces, identified the skill gaps of the workforces, affirmed actions already being taken and highlighted tangible impacts. As an overview, the evidence collated from the skills audit identified that the greatest needs for development are within1. The trust's wider workforces (e.g. receptionists, library assistants, casual staff, cafe assistants);2. The trust's strategic leaders (e.g. Chief Executives).The Royal Society of Public Health (RSPH), Health Education England and Public Health England regional workforce leads in the designated pilot areas have been instrumental in supporting development opportunities for the wider workforce. There are three core foci:1. Developing a leisure and culture trust- specific 'Making Every Contact Count' course including a train-the-trainer model;2. Trusts accessing the Health Education England and Public Health England regional 'Masterclass' programmes including, for example, learning focused on specific populations and conditions, data and evaluation;3. Trusts are equally exploring opportunities of becoming RSPH Training Centres to deliver in-house and externally with partners, the RSPH level 1 and 2 courses in particular.To build the skills of the trust's strategic leaders, partnerships are being created with regional Public Health Leadership Academy and Masterclass programmes, which can then utilise the trust's ability to cascade the learning throughout their workforce. Driven by Health Education England and Public Health England regional workforce leads opportunities for joint learning events and workshops between Directors of Public Health and trust Chief Executives will importantly build understanding of and confidence in the trust sector. The outcomes to be derived from these opportunities will lead to ensuring trusts are supporting the delivery of the Public Health Outcomes Framework, cross-organisation partnership building to delivering better health outcomes, understanding and complementing each other's role and strengths and supporting collaboration and innovation in service delivery.As alluded to, trusts are already investing in the skills development of their workforces to fully understand and deliver to the wider determinants of health. For example, within Life Leisure's 'Community Partnerships Plan 2010-2015', they highlighted the ambition to create a highly skilled workforce who would feel confident and capable of working with a range of health needs and abilities. The leisure trust, based in Stockport, has high expectations of their workforce, from Apprentices through to Level 4 specialist instructors. This expectation is matched by the trust investing heavily in their workforce with the ultimate outcome leading togreater capacity to see more referrals from deprived areas whilst still maintaining a financially sustainable offer. …