Isle of Whithorn Arts Group

On Wednesday 24th May, the members were introduced to Pippa Couzens, Health Improvement Worker, as the newest member of the Wigtownshire Health & Wellbeing Team, who spent the day shadowing the BHC Machars Team, starting with the Login & Connect group in the morning, the Isle of Whithorn Arts Group in the afternoon and finishing the day with the Isle of Whithorn Youth group in the evening....A long day!!

Pippa was very impressed by the diversity and lovely art work amongst the members and was made very welcome by all.

 

The group is very inclusive, welcoming and friendly and members have interests in various creative arts & crafts which they are happy to share. 

Here are some of their talents and as can be seen there are many great artistic genres covered.

The Group meet every Wednesday from 12.30 - 15.00.

For further details please phone the Office on 01988501111

Isle of Whithorn Youth Club - Healthy Eating

Last Wednesday, the youth group at the Isle of Whithorn had the chance to make a healthy version of the popular dish Chilli Garlic Chicken, served with noodles!!

After a quick demo, the young people all cooked their own dish, preparing the vegetables themselves!

 

There were some great results and all the young people enjoyed the experience.

After consultation, the group agreed that the next Healthy Cooking session, in September, will be a Chow Mein.  Looking forward to that!!!


Well done everyone for what was a great evening.

Health and Social Care and Marie Curie - Joint Consultation on Palliative/End of Life Care

Dumfries and Galloway Health and Social Care Partnership and Marie Curie are working together to look at the provision of 24 hour palliative care in Wigtownshire. 

Four public consultation events are taking place:

Wednesday 31 May 2017 between 2pm - 4pm at Newton Stewart Centre, Newton Stewart

 Monday 5 June 2017 – 10am - 12noon at Ryan Centre, Stranraer

Tuesday 13 June 2017 - 9.30 am - 11.30am at Whithorn Community Centre, Whithorn

Tuesday 13 June 2017 – 2pm - 4pm at Glenluce Village Hall, Glenluce

 

The public are invited to register their interest by contacting Niall Kieran on 0141 557 7536 or niall.kieran@mariecurie.org.uk

Draft Dumfries & Galloway Carers Strategy 2017-2021 Consultation

                                                                     

The current Dumfries & Galloway Carers Strategy expires in 2017. A draft strategy has been developed for 2017 – 2021 following consultation with Carers, Carers Organisations and Partners.

A Carer is defined by the Scottish Government as “a person of any age who provides unpaid help and support to a relative, friend or neighbour who cannot manage to live independently without the Carers help due to frailty, illness, disability or addiction”. In Dumfries & Galloway, Carers make up 10% of the population and of this group, 29% provide more than 50 hours of support a week.

Carers are a vital component of the health and social care system.  Unpaid Carers are the largest group of care providers in Scotland, providing more care than the NHS and Councils combined, avoiding costs of over £10bn per annum (University of Sheffield 2015).

A copy of the draft strategy can be found by clicking here :

Alternatively the direct web address is:
http://www.nhsdg.scot.nhs.uk/Resources/Communications/Documents/0586-16_Carers_Strategy.pdf

We would greatly appreciate if you can complete the survey, which can be found at this link https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/dgcarers
To go directly to the survey, click HERE

This consultation is open until 30 June 2017.

For more information or assistance to complete the consultation survey please email Carers@dumgal.gov.uk or phone 01387 246 941.

Hard copies are available on request.

Arthritis Care Newsletter - Spring, Summer 2017

To view Arthritis Care latest Newsletter, please click HERE. Lots of interesting articles!

Call for Performers - Youth Beatz 2017

Login & Connect

Monday Club - 15th June 2017

On Monday 15^th May, the Monday Club members had a very interesting and informative talk from Eleanor Fenton, pharmacist at the Creebridge Mill Pharmacy, who was accompanied by Hui Lee, Student.

Eleanor talked about “Reducing the Risk of Heart Disease”. 

She talked about the blood pressure and explained how it is measured and recorded, explaining the difference between the higher reading (systolic pressure) and lower reading (diastolic pressure).  She also explained that a normal reading would be up to 140/90mmHg (millimetres of mercury).  She talked about the different drug treatments available for high blood pressure. 

She then explained what cholesterol was and how too much of it in our blood can be harmful as it contributes to a risk of developing heart disease and stroke. 

She explained how a healthy diet is important and explained the difference between saturated and unsaturated fats.  She gave further advice about limiting our salt intake, our alcohol intake, maintaining a healthy weight, reducing the amount of sugar we eat and stopping smoking.

The talk was very interactive and the members were able to ask many questions including some about the medications they take.

Eleanor mentioned that a “medicine review” is available at our local pharmacies.  Patients can always ask to speak to a pharmacist if they are unsure of any side effects they are experiencing or if they are uncertain as to when is the best time to take their medicine. 

Before concluding the talk, members were given an example of a 75 years old gentleman with a 62% risk of having a heart attack over the next 10 years and how that risk was reduced to 49% over several months by making changes to his lifestyle.  

click on picture to enlarge

Big thank you to Eleanor and Hui for taking the time to visit the Monday Club and passing on such valuable information!

Please see below factsheets and information leaflets on various topics:

Reducing the risk of heart disease - click here
Cholesterol - click here

Healthy Eating - click here

Alternatively you can visit the "Chest Heart & Stroke" website by clicking the following link: https://www.chss.org.uk/

Wigtownshire Health & Social Care Integration Team - Facebook Page

The Health and Social Care Integration Team in Wigtownshire have set up a new Facebook page to advertise all that is happening in Wigtownshire. You can view this page by clicking on the link below or by clicking on the permanent link on the right hand side of the page.

https://www.facebook.com/wigtownshireHSCIT/ 

Machars Area Partnership for Building Healthy Communities Action Planning Day

The Action Planning Day was held on 24th April 2017 at Wigtown County Buildings and was attended by people who use our services, volunteers and partner organisations.

The morning was focussed on looking at what was delivered in the community since January 2016 as well as gathering feedback from all involved and making decisions about the future of the activities .

After a light lunch, the afternoon session concentrated on Health and Social Care Integration as well as ideas for future initiatives from partners. 

To view the full presentation of the day, click here.

Keep Safe Scheme

What is the aim of the initiative?

The aim of the Keep Safe initiative is to ensure that disabled people can enjoy ordinary day to day life and activities free from the fear of abuse or intimidation.

What is Keep Safe and how does it work?

The Keep Safe initiative works with a network of businesses such as shops, libraries and cafes who have agreed to make their premises a ‘Keep Safe’ place for people to go if they feel frightened, distressed or are the victim of crime when out in the community.

Disabled and elderly people who wish to take part in the initiative will be issued with a contact card which will contain details of the persons name, any health concerns, any communication needs and helpful contact details for friends or family.

Businesses who agree to take part in the initiative will be issued with a Keep Safe Sticker to display in their premises window to let vulnerable people know that they provide a ‘Keep Safe’ place. If a person goes into the ‘Keep Safe’ place and shows their contact card to staff, the staff member will reassure the person and ring one of the numbers on the card and/or contact the police if a crime has been committed.

For further information, go to www.iammescotland.co.uk

Power of Attorney could be vital for your family!

A campaign has been launched across Dumfries and Galloway to encourage people to think about Power of Attorney.

Over the coming weeks, the Health and Social Care Partnership, via work within the Delayed Discharge Partnership, wants to raise awareness of preparation and making informed decisions.

Graham Abrines, Interim General Manager for Community Health and Social Care, says: "The message is quite simple. If you have family members, patients or even yourself, who haven't yet thought about how they would like to be supported if they lose the ability to make informed decisions for themselves then now is a good time to consider doing something about it.

"Power of Attorney (POA) allows people, whilst they still have full decision making capacity, to state how they want to be treated and who and it can be more than one person, should be making decisions on their behalf when they are no longer able to do so. Quite simply it takes away many of the dilemmas that families and on occasion clinicians find themselves in when deciding what or what not to do in supporting the person.

"There are some patients across our hospital settings, who with no POA  in place, require  an application by a family member or the local authority for a Guardianship
Order which is required to be heard in the Sheriff Court  to establish who should be making those informed decisions on their behalf.

"Take a moment; if that was you, or somebody you knew how does that make you feel? Particularly if you know there was an easier alternative where the person’s wishes were fully known?"

Many of the local solicitors across the region, who are fully supportive of this approach, will give a 10 per cent discount to anyone wanting to progress with a POA until the end of June.

To view the information leaflet please click here

Gentle Exercise to Music

The group, which runs every Wednesday afternoon from the Newton Stewart Activity Resource Centre (ARC), is aimed at people with limited mobility. 

Feedback from ARC Manager has been very positive, highlighting the health & wellbeing outcomes of their clients are being met every week, including confidence to take part in the activity and supporting their fall prevention outcomes:

“This group continues to be a much needed activity; Pam facilitates

the group and has built up very positive relationships with group members, both staff and users. 

The benefits of this group has enabled many to start moving again, maintain exercise, be involved and included in a social group and meet new friends. 

Improvement of Health and Wellbeing is an outcome for many individuals we support, the exercise group supports the service to meet personal outcomes on a weekly basis.

A great example of the benefit from this group: one lady who has a recorded number of falls and had a recent HIP replacement, has a falls prevention plan in place.  Gentle exercise is part of this; she has started strengthening her muscles again and has had no recorded falls.”

 

 

Login and Connect - Newton Stewart

11 people attended this group yesterday and help was given on a range of topics including Facebook privacy, downloading attachments on ipads, installing apps on tablets and general security advice.

All the group went away having had an interesting and informative session.

The group meet every Wednesday at the Newton Stewart Centre (The Hut) at 10.30 - 12.30. new members are always welcome!!

Monday Club

This week at the Monday Club the group had a visit from Eddie McGaw.

Eddie brought in some film recordings of the work he and volunteers do for a village in Africa. It was quite an emotional talk seeing how very little the villagers have and how so grateful they are to Eddie and the crew, simple things we take for granted make a massive impact on their lives.

The village is situated next to a dump which provides some resources that other folk discard, even licking cake deposits from old paper bags thrown away by a bakery.

Eddie showed the group just how unselfish they are, thinking of others before thinking of themselves - quite humbling! Eddie's next visit to Africa is October this year.  There is a group of 10 going to Africa and each and every one will use the flight allowance to the full taking very little for themselves.

This was a very thought provoking session!  There are so many things we just throw away or just have stashed in our cupboards never seeing the light of day, even a pencil for school with a rubber on top light up a child's face.

 Pam came during the second half on the morning once again to lift our spirits with her chair exercises and put a smile on our faces. 

At our next meeting on Monday 15th May we will be visited by Elinor Fenton from the Creedbridge Mill Pharmacy and Pam with gentle exercise.