Educational film resources explaining the most effective ways of managing long-term conditions are being made available to patients across north Cumbria.
The award winning ‘bite-sized’ films and structured education courses from ‘The Sound Doctor’ explain how making simple lifestyle choices can improve quality of life and prevent ill health by covering a range of conditions and topics that include:
· Ageing well at home
· Back Pain
· COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease)
· Dementia
· Diabetes
· Heart
· Keeping well at work including stress and anxiety
· Lifestyle choices
· Sleep course
The films and courses bring practical, effective and credible information together featuring advice from leading national and international experts, as well as patients living well with their conditions. The vast libraries are further broken up into accessible sections so that patients and their families can absorb the information at their own pace.
People in north Cumbria can now access The Sound Doctor resources through the NHS North Cumbria Clinical Commissioning Group’s (CCG) website at: northcumbriaccg.nhs.uk/thesounddoctor
GPs and health professionals might also directly refer patients to the relevant film resources to help them better manage their conditions or to provide them with further information and advice. This includes information to help them understand and manage chronic health problems and allows them to refer back to the resources whenever they want to re-visit the relevant information (for example with conditions like COPD or Diabetes).
The resources available also include nationally accredited online courses that people can complete at home to help them understand a new diagnosis, which can also be helpful for family and carers to understand the issues which a patient may be facing.
Dr Gareth Coakley, Chief Clinical Information Officer at NHS North Cumbria CCG said:
“The Sound Doctor is a positive resource filled with really useful advice which clearly explains conditions and offers patients practical advice that can help empower them to understand and manage their own conditions more effectively. They are also short, easy to understand and aim to help people to improve their health and wellbeing and basically get the most out of life.
“There are a couple of ways people might be referred to The Sound Doctor resources, health professionals might refer patients to specific films or courses providing relevant links or people can just visit the CCG’s website to explore the vast support available to them.
“It’s worth noting that they are not just for people with long term conditions and I would encourage everyone to take a bit of time to look through some of these films and courses. There are also excellent sections on keeping well at work, ageing well at home and lifestyle choices, as well as a course on sleep that would definitely be of benefit to all.”
