Frontline staff must be trained in health issues

A report says that people in roles where they are dealing with the public should receive training on how to talk to customers about their physical and mental health.

The Royal Society for Public Health’s report What Are You Talking About? says that employees working in workplaces with public exposure, as well as in schools, care homes and gyms, could do more to encourage conversations about health and wellbeing.

The RSPH calls for extra training to help people in roles that involve public contact to gain the confidence they need to initiate these types of conversations.

The society has claimed that encouraging everyday conversations could influence healthy behaviors, such as exercising, drinking less and quitting smoking. It can also be used to signpost to additional support for issues like mental illness and menopause.

In a poll of more than 2,000 adults, it was found that in a variety of situations where staff and the public are frequently talking, the majority of Britons want to see increased training for mental and physical wellbeing.

The RSPH also uses the report to promote Making Every Contact Count (MECC), its own training resource that trains professionals on how to integrate conversations about health into routine practice.

The argument is that encouraging even small changes in behaviour among the general public can have a positive impact on overall UK health and reduce pressure on NHS.

William Roberts, RSPH’s chief executive officer, said that there are millions of daily conversations that could have a much greater impact if they included health.

There’s an impression that we as a country prefer to avoid talking about our health. We must stop this and start talking.

In its purest form, prevention is about giving the public the tools to prevent illness and stay out of hospital. To make that a realisation, Roberts said, it will be necessary to embed the ethos for prevention in society by using interventions such as MECC.

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