Embedding All Our Health from theory to practice in a university
University embeds AOH framework in its curricula to help current and future students build the skills to maximise their impact on preventing ill-health.
Summary
Public Health England’s All Our Health (AOH) framework is a call to action to all health and care professionals to embed prevention within their day to day practice. Through educational materials, tools and resources, AOH helps professionals make an even greater impact in preventing illness, protecting health and promoting wellbeing.
Health promotion and prevention skills are essential for all nursing, midwifery and care staff. By embedding AOH within its nursing curricula, Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) is helping current and future students to build the right skills to take an asset based approach to maximise their impact on preventing ill-health.
Background
Health Education North West aims to improve health outcomes and reduce health inequalities through giving its workforce the skills to maximise their impact on prevention and health promotion. To do this, MMU uses AOH as part of its curricula to help nursing, midwifery and care students build their skills around health promotion and prevention, within a public health role.
What was involved?
As part of their studies, students across nursing programmes undertake an academic module which requires them to critically review priority public health issues and initiatives, using this learning to provide creative, cost effective and sustainable ways to address local public health needs. They are supported to take an asset based approach to consider how community capacity can be developed and ways to work effectively with local authorities.
Each student chooses a different approach to public health policy, such as AOH, and sets out a plan to address a specific health issue using the principles of this approach, such as young people and self-harm. They must demonstrate how any plan would work in practice, showing the evidence and outlining what would happen if the health need wasn’t addressed.
Students use classroom study and practice based activities to develop their knowledge and skills. They also critically explore the current interventions that are in place and examine if these need to be strengthened and expanded, or if different approaches may be more effective.
To demonstrate their learning students were required to:
- present a formal 10-minute PowerPoint presentation to peers
- produce a professional poster for display to both academic staff and partner agencies. This poster forms part of the summative assessment of the university module
- present and showcase their work at a university conference to other health professionals, senior managers in practice, stakeholders and other public health agencies and evaluate on their feedback
- present and showcase their work at other external conferences
What has worked well?
Embedding policy such as AOH into the curriculum and using its priorities as an assessment of learning highlights students’ vital role in public health.
Being able to apply their skills through theory and practice-based learning, and taking a summative assessment of this learning that is shared and promoted, adds value to students’ work and ensures that it reaches a wider audience.
The sharing of ideas and the asset based approach to how these ideas can be turned into reality, require students to work with other practitioners in practice at all levels. This helps nursing students develop management and leadership skills while helping other practitioners to build their own skill and knowledge base.
The main areas of AOH content that underpinned MMU’s teaching content included advice on:
- reducing inequalities, preventable health issues and improving life experiences
- maximising health-promoting interventions using local stats and intelligence
- encouraging the development of healthy places through capacity building, focusing on community assets
Next steps
Prevention is a major strategic priority under the NHS Long Term Plan. It highlights the need to embed health promotion knowledge and skills within the academic curricula.
By embedding content from AOH and other PHE resources, such as Health Matters within the development and delivery of curricula, universities can play an important role in helping health and care professionals to meet the challenges of the future, ensuring more people live healthier, longer lives.
Further information
Visit All Our Health to find out more.
For further questions on the work being done at Manchester Metropolitan University, contact Dr Maxine Holt, Principal Lecturer in Public Health.