How improving the wellbeing of Wokingham Borough residents could alleviate pressure on local health & care services

The report describes a partnership between Healthwatch Wokingham Borough and Unlock Your Wellbeing, a Community Interest Company, to deliver a series of free workshops designed to improve the wellbeing, resilience, and self-management skills of local residents. The initiative was based on the belief that people who are better able to manage their mental and physical wellbeing are likely to enjoy a better quality of life and require less intervention from health and social care services. 

The report highlights the importance of wellbeing, noting that positive wellbeing is associated with longer life expectancy, improved recovery from illness, healthier behaviours, stronger resilience, and better mental health. It also notes that the UK performs relatively poorly compared with other European countries on measures of mental wellbeing, despite some recent improvements.

Four workshops were delivered:

• Living with a Long Term Condition
• Managing Fatigue
• Increasing Happiness, Wellbeing and Resilience
• Introduction to Wellness Recovery Action Planning (WRAP) 

The workshop on living with long-term conditions focused on helping people manage chronic illnesses such as arthritis, depression, multiple sclerosis, and the effects of stroke. The report emphasises that people with long-term conditions account for a large proportion of NHS activity and spending, and that improved self-management can increase confidence, independence, and quality of life while reducing demand on healthcare services.

The fatigue workshop addressed the impact of physical and mental fatigue associated with conditions such as multiple sclerosis, ME, fibromyalgia, head injury, and depression. Participants learned techniques to better understand and manage fatigue, helping to reduce its impact on everyday life, work, relationships, and health.

The happiness, wellbeing, and resilience workshop explored evidence about improving emotional wellbeing and developing resilience. It emphasised that resilience is an important life skill that helps people manage stress, overcome challenges, and recover from difficult experiences. Participants were encouraged to develop practical strategies for strengthening their emotional wellbeing. 

The WRAP workshop introduced Wellness Recovery Action Planning, a structured self-management approach originally developed within mental health services. Participants learned how to identify warning signs of declining wellbeing, develop personal wellness strategies, and create action plans that support recovery and ongoing wellbeing. 

The evaluation found that all four workshops were oversubscribed and received highly positive feedback. Participants reported improvements in their ability to cope with fatigue, greater resilience, and enhanced wellbeing after attending just a single session. Ninety-two percent of attendees agreed that the workshops achieved their aims, and many requested follow-up sessions. Demand for further sessions was particularly high among participants attending the long-term conditions workshop. 

Participants described the workshops as informative, practical, easy to understand, and helpful in providing new techniques to improve everyday wellbeing and self-management. Many reported learning useful approaches that they intended to apply in their daily lives. 

The report concludes that wellbeing-focused interventions can play an important role in supporting individuals to take greater responsibility for their health, improve resilience, and achieve better health outcomes. It suggests that providing relatively low-cost wellbeing support may help reduce pressure on GP practices and other health services while improving the lives of local residents. The report recommends that funding be secured to enable the workshops to continue on a regular basis.