Big Lottery Healthy Living Centre - Achievements - Upstream

Big Lottery Healthy Living Centre

Upstream was founded in 2002 to deliver a 5-year project for the Big Lottery Healthy Living Centre programme (the Big Lottery Fund was then called the New Opportunities Fund). The experience associated with that project has been at the heart of Upstream’s work, which has developed to embrace new health and care priorities locally and strategically, and grown to meet further needs from communities and individuals.

The project focused on the development of community mentoring, on carefully tailored one-to-one intervention aimed at building the self-confidence of vulnerable adults and enabling them to remain independent for longer, on creating local partnerships with statutory and voluntary sector organisations to plan a more cohesive approach to preventative care in the community, and on disseminating the results of the project.

An integral part of the project was continuous ‘Action Research’ through independent monitoring and evaluation by the Peninsula Medical School. The PMS Report was published in October 2005. The Report highlighted the value of the social context in health improvements and found:

• Statistically significant increase in SF12 mental health component
• Statistically significant reduction in depressive mood
• Clinically meaningful changes in mental well-being for around 60% of participants, with 30% experiencing dramatic positive changes.
• Psychological and social benefits
• Health behaviour and health benefits

Transformational change: around a quarter of cases reported profound life-changes; re-engagement with society, renewed optimism about life; dramatic lifestyle changes

The Report concluded: ‘Against an expected picture of decline in both physical and mental health in this age group (as found in the English longitudinal Study of Ageing and the MRC Cognitive Function and Ageing Study), overall health seems to be improving in this population, with stronger short term benefits in psychological well-being, and longer-term benefits in terms of depression, physical health and perceived social support.

See evaluation.