Report: October 2008: Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives: A toolkit for developing local strategies

This toolkit has been designed to follow on from Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives: Guidance for local areas and to provide further support for developing a local strategy to tackle overweight and obesity. It is primarily aimed at commissioners of public health services in both primary care trusts and local authorities. The document is not compulsory but is intended to help local multi-agency teams - including public health, health professionals, health promotion and primary care professionals, and strategic planners in both the NHS and local government in England - to develop and implement strategies and action plans to tackle the year-on-year rise of overweight and obesity through prevention and management.

The toolkit provides a comprehensive collection of information and tools to assist with delivering current national and local policies. It purposefully does not provide detailed information about care and treatment of overweight and obesity, but rather offers signposts to well established and comprehensive material covered elsewhere. The toolkit complements the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) clinical guideline Obesity: The prevention, identification, assessment and management of overweight and obesity in adults and children, the Foresight programme Tackling obesities: Future choices, and the Government's obesity strategy, Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives: A cross-government strategy for England. 

The toolkit is designed to equip local action teams with useful information and tools to meet and address the challenge of tackling overweight and obesity. It has five sections:

Section A:   Overweight and obesity: the public health problem (260 KB)
This section focuses on the public health case for developing a local overweight and obesity strategy.

Section B:   Tackling overweight and obesity (207 KB)
This section of the toolkit looks at ways of tackling overweight and obesity. It focuses on the five key themes highlighted in Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives: A cross-government strategy for England as the basis for tackling excess weight.

Section C:   Developing a local overweight and obesity strategy (171 KB)
This section of the toolkit provides a practical guide to help commissioners in primary care trusts (PCTs) and local authorities develop a local strategy that fits into the framework for local action published in Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives: Guidance for local areas. 

Section D:   Resources for commissioners (935 KB)
This section contains 15 tools (see below for links to individual tools) for commissioners of public health services in primary care trusts and local authorities developing local plans for tackling child obesity. It follows the framework for local action outlined in Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives: Guidance for local areas. 

Section E:   Resources for healthcare professionals (1208 KB)
This section contains tools (see below for links to individual tools) that public health commissioners can provide to healthcare professionals. It has been divided into three sub-sections: tools to help healthcare professionals assess weight problems, tools to help them raise the issue of weight with their patients, and tools to help professionals gain access to further resources.

See DH press release: Cost of obesity to local health services revealed (Opens in new window)

Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives: A toolkit for developing local strategies is available as a download from this website, the Department of Health website and the Faculty of Public Health website.

NOTE: Limited hard copies are now available from the Department of Health.

To order a copy, go to http://www.orderline.dh.gov.uk/ecom_dh/public/home.jsf  and quote 283780 or Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives: A toolkit for developing local strategies 

or write to:

DH Publications Orderline
PO Box 777
London, SE1 6XH
Email: dh@prolog.uk.com

Tel: 0300 123 1002
Fax: 01623 724 524
Minicom: 0300 123 1003 (8am to 6pm, Monday to Friday)

Downloading Individual Tools

Section D

Tool D1:  Commissioning for health and wellbeing: a checklist (136 KB)

Understanding the problem in your area and setting local goals

Tool D2:  Obesity prevalence ready-reckoner (128 KB)
Tool D3:  Estimating the local cost of obesity (208 KB)
Tool D4:  Identifying priority groups (152 KB)
Tool D5:  Setting local goals (190 KB)

Local leadership

Tool D6:  Local leadership (254 KB)

Choosing interventions

Tool D7:  What success looks like - changing behaviour (144 KB)
Tool D8:  Choosing interventions (356 KB)
Tool D9:  Targeting behaviours (156 KB)
Tool D10:  Communicating with target groups - key messages (177 KB)
Tool D11:  Guide to the procurement process (180 KB)
Tool D12:  Commissioning weight management services for children, young people and families (176 KB)
Tool D13:  Commissioning social marketing (165 KB)

Monitoring and evaluation

Tool D14:  Monitoring and evaluation: a framework (269 KB)

Building local capabilities

Tool D15:  Useful resources (286 KB)

Section E

Tool E1:   Clinical care pathways (798 KB)

Assessment of weight problems

Tool E2:   Early identification of patients (53 KB)
Tool E3:   Measurement and assessment of overweight and obesity - ADULTS (116 KB)
Tool E4:   Measurement and assessment of overweight and obesity - CHILDREN (63 KB)

Raising the issue of weight with patients - assessing readiness to change

Tool E5:   Raising the issue of weight - Department of Health advice (198 KB)
Tool E6:   Raising the issue of weight - perceptions of overweight healthcare professionals and overweight people (93 KB)

Resources for healthcare professionals

Tool E7:   Leaflets and booklets for patients (83 KB)
Tool E8:   FAQs on childhood obesity (86 KB)
Tool E9:   The National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) (88 KB)