Active Lifestyles
The post was developed in partnership with Somerset Primary Care Trust to develop and promote active and healthy living for all residents across Taunton Deane and offer opportunities to encourage residents to become more physically active.
Click here to download the latest Active Lifestyle Newsletter.
Flexercise
Flexercise is an initiative that runs across Somerset. It aims to promote mental health and wellbeing through regular chair based activity.
Flexercise was originally designed to benefit older people who live in nursing homes, residential homes or sheltered housing as well as those older people that attend day care centres. However, it now has a wider range of benefits including helping people with physical disabilities, learning difficulties and rehabilitation after a stroke.
As well as focusing the Flexercise Project to meet the needs of older people, the programme can also provide benefits for people at risk of social isolation or exclusion and people with, or at risk of, developing mental health problems
One Day Flexercise Leaders Training.
Tone Leisure offers training for anyone in the district who would like to lead Flexercise on a voluntary basis or through a work setting.
The training costs £16 and consists of a half day workshop that is suitable for:
- Residential and nursing home staff
- Day centre staff
- Sheltered housing staff
- Members of the community
The workshop covers the theory of Flexercise, activities without equipment, activities with equipment and an informal assessment to ensure that everyone is confident with leading a Flexercise Session.
Workshops are run throughout the year. The cost of £16.00 includes refreshments and a pack detailing all the information from the workshop. The workshop includes opportunities to try out the activities and see what it is like to participate in a Flexercise Session.
Full support is given to the individual after the training to assist them in setting up and starting a Flexercise class in their setting.
For details of the next Flexercise session, please contact the Active Lifestyles Officer at l.bulmer@toneleisure.com .
NHS Health Checks
The NHS Health Checks programme is a national preventative programme which is intended to help people stay healthy for longer and Tone Leisure is one of few service providers that offers this programme and is able to hold sessions in the local area.
The programme will, in the future, provide an assessment of cardiovascular risk to all 40-74 year-olds living in Somerset who do not have existing diagnosed vascular disease, including chronic kidney disease, diabetes, renal disease or hypertension. This will be a rolling 5-yearly programme.
The assessment will be conducted using near patient testing, this will ensure that results and lifestyle advice can be provided for an individual in one appointment.
The team will discuss what all individuals can do to manage their own risk, this may include:
- Taking regular exercise.
- Eating a healthy diet.
- Reducing their calorie and alcohol intake as a way of managing their weight.
- Stopping smoking.
The team will use the following information to assess risk:
- asking the individual whether they have experienced pain in the cardiovascular region during exertion.
- age
- ethnicity
- gender
- postcode
- family history
- BMI
- blood pressure
- cholesterol
- blood glucose
- an assessment of radial pulse for indication of possible Atrial Fibrillation.
- recording levels of physical activity.
- questions on weekly alcohol intake.
- smoking status
Individuals who have a low or medium risk will be re-called by the screening programme every 5 years. Those at high risk will be recalled and or treated by their GP according to their clinical need.
Tone Leisure can also refer individuals to Lifestyle Intervention Teams to encourage healthy eating, weight loss, alcohol intake reduction, taking exercise and stopping smoking.
Change4life
Eat Well, Move More, Live Longer. Change4Life is a society-wide movement that aims to prevent people from becoming overweight by encouraging them to eat better and move more.
The Change4Life advertising campaign began at the start of 2009 and has been gaining momentum ever since.
The advertising campaign has made the subject of weight and physical activity a hot topic and will urge us to make changes to our diet and levels of activity.
Join the people across England who are already making a Change4Life. Join now and you will receive your free welcome pack and get the chance to create your very own Change4Life character.
Active Living
The Somerset Active Living Network is made up of a group of community, voluntary and local government authorities who work together to enable Active Living to happen in Somerset. To help do this, there is an Active Living Board, which is made up of a number of partners. They represent the interests of the partner agencies involved with the Active Living Network and make sure that preventative and wellbeing services reach older people in Somerset.
To support the Active Living Centres there is a team of staff who work closely with them to:
- Give advice about setting up activities;
- Help groups provide useful information about day-to-day living;
- Support volunteers who help with Active Living;
- Help communities set up their own groups;
- Link with partner agencies to support them to deliver well being services through Active Living Centres;
- Work with Somerset clubs and groups providing opportunities to become part of their local Active Living Network and to access a range of information and activities.
Tone Leisure work closely with Active Living to ensure that physical activity needs of Older People are met across Taunton Deane, and access to physical activity opportunities is not limited through offering a variety of activities in the Active Living Centres themselves.
For more information on Active Living please visit the Somerset Active Living website
Age Concern Somerset: www.ageconcernsomerset.org.uk
Somerset Active Living: www.somersetactiveliving.org.uk
Volunteering
At Tone Leisure we are committed to involving a diverse range of local people in our work in both formal volunteering and community activity in activities such as Health Walk Leaders and Flexercise Leaders.
To volunteer to lead Health Walks or Flexercise sessions, please contact Tone Leisure on (01823) 273088 or to find out more about Volunteering in general click here.