We are excited to be leading on a new community outreach pilot starting in December 2022.

Many people with SMI are not taking up their annual health check. We’ve been commissioned by NHS Dorset to help find out why this is and the potential role of the VCS in supporting.

The pilot involves working with four GP practices in Central Bournemouth PCN to support the “Severe Mental Illness Physical Health Check” project, which seeks to increase the number of annual physical health check that are completed and better understand why uptake is low.

This important and challenging piece of work involves engaging with individuals diagnosed with SMI who have previously declined or have not attended their annual health check. To also collect patient case studies and learning from those who are happy to share their experience, both positive and negative and any barriers they face. This will help inform service development and also improve integrated pathways and relationships between GPs, SMI physical health support workers and social prescribers.

This initial pilot work is funded under the outreach offer by NHS Dorset with the aim to work across all 18 PCNs across Dorset tackling DNA (did not attend) rates for the annual health check and to use the barriers and findings collected to improve the current health check approach.

If you want to find out more please get in touch with our Project Officer – Andrew Robertson: Andrew.Robertson@can100.org