Derby City Council is delighted to announce that its’ Livewell service has been nominated as Best Health and Wellbeing Initiative at the Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE) Awards for 2019.
The APSE awards are designed to recognise excellence in local government frontline services across the UK and are open to all local authorities and their public sector partners. They showcase the best examples of service provision, new initiatives and personal commitment and this is tremendous recognition of two outstanding services and just reward for years of hard work and innovation.
The Livewell service has been recognised in the Best Health and Wellbeing initiative category for its innovative contribution in helping improve wellbeing in Derby.
The service offers free lifestyle programmes to help adults and children manage their weight, stop smoking, get fitter and improve their overall wellbeing. The 12-month programmes combine one to one and group support with fun activities and educational workshops to help families to change their lifestyles for the better.
Since 2013, over 15,000 people have been supported to transform their lives thanks to Livewell’s innovative behaviour change model.
In the financial year 2017/18, the service helped 1160 people quit smoking, performed 936 health checks, saw 61% of clients achieved at least 5% weight loss, 70% improve their quality of life and 1891 children engage in Active Schools.
Livewell was also accredited by Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) for its Lose Weight Feel Great course and won two awards at Active Derbyshire’s Towards an Active Derbyshire Awards 2019. The team along with clients and volunteers were finalists in five of the eight categories.
Cllr Roy Webb, Cabinet Member for Adults, Health and Housing said:
This is a fantastic reward for a fabulous service. I am very proud of all the team for their efforts this year and all the years building up to this recognition. I hear so many inspiring stories from people whose lives have been transformed by the dedicated work of the team and volunteers and long may it continue.
The Council has also been selected in the category Best service team of the year – Highways, Winter Maintenance & Street Lighting.