NHS England Health Literacy Schools Toolkit: Making the case

Wanting to reach out to colleagues in your Trust or externally, some could places to start are::

• Trust Careers Advisor or Widening Participation Officer
• Trust Secretary/Governance team some Trusts will be trying to approach young governors to be advocates for the Trust and this is one way in.
• Community Nurses / School Nurses
• Children's services within Public Health England (some run programmes to engage teenagers in looking after there health but also supporting the council and public services to improve them.

Dear ….

I am writing to enquire if you would be interested in ourselves delivering some training or speaking to young persons in your area about Health Literacy. I hear you asking what is health literacy and why would this be interesting to us.

Health literacy, is about you as an individual having the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions to manage your health effectively. Those aged 16+ have particular health needs especially the 35% not from a White British background currently living in Reading.

To give you more insight, our reason for approaching you is that we belief by speaking to young persons now it benefits most students as they start to take control of their own health especially when teenagers and transitioning from school into either university or work life where they are more likely to make their own decisions. Alongside looking at how health inequalities could be addressed.

In 2016 a study took place in Newcastle which looked at the population of people between the ages of 16 – 65 in England and found on average that 43% of the population was health illiterate and when numeracy was added in this went up to 61%. In Reading we are on par with the national average but Slough who are just up the road have a health illiteracy of 55% and when numeracy is added in this goes up to 73%.

In understanding the health needs of our young people and providing resources and training we believe that it will benefit all parties as it can reduce missed medical appointments, reoccurrence of illnesses due to lack of understanding of information presented, reduced prescribing and confidence in pupils to speak up about their health.

In relation to the ask and the time commitment we would ideally be guided by yourselves.

We would also offer training to any staff, school librarians, school nurses who would be interested.

I can be contacted on the following numbers if you would like to have a more in depth conversation.

Thank you in advance for considering our offer

Thank you in advance.