Health Trainers’ Network

Welcome to the Health Trainers' Network web page.  This web page has been set up as one of the mechanisms to support and share information and learning on the development of the NHS Health Trainer model, following an inaugural meeting for PCTs and others developing the Health Trainer role, organised by the Department of Health and the NHS Modernisation Agency in April 2005. 

Here you will be able to read documents about the development of Health Trainers and discuss and share your experiences with others working in this innovative area of health improvement.

The Health Trainer role is being introduced in the wake of the Government White Paper Choosing Health.  The summary of the White Paper states:
'Anyone who wants help to make healthier choices and stick to them will have the opportunity to be supported by a new kind of personal health resource, NHS health trainers.  In keeping with a shift in public health approach from advice from on high to support from next door, health trainers will be drawn from local communities, understanding the day-to-day concerns and experiences of the people they are supporting on health. ' 

From 2006, NHS-accredited health trainers will be giving support to people who want it in the areas of highest need (those 20 per cent of PCTs with the worst health and deprivation indicators, known as Spearhead PCTs ) and from 2007, progressively across the country.  From 2006, these health trainers will work in the 88 spearhead PCTs in areas of high health inequalities, but eventually they will be employed throughout the country.

You will shortly also be able to upload your own documents to the website, so you can share job descriptions, competences and protocols, and show how your Trust is implementing the introduction of the role.  Watch this space for news of this facility becoming available.

You can also start and join in with discussions in a dedicated Health Trainer Forum.  Click here to visit and contribute to the Forum.

An NHS Health Trainers' community of practice will shortly be set up which you will be able to join, but until then this web page is the main point of contact - just look here for any new document postings, and look at the forum for discussion points.

Useful documents