On the 9 February we hosted our fourth annual conference which, for the first time, was endorsed by the Royal College of Nursing. I wanted to take this opportunity to thank the 400 of you that were able to join us for making it such a great event, and to share some glimpses from the day.
In the morning plenary, the speakers did a fantastic job of setting out the strategic context. We heard David Mowat MP, assert the Government’s continued commitment to the NHS Health Check programme.
Prof. Kevin Fenton highlighted why cardiovascular disease (CVD) continues to be a challenge and what PHE is doing about it. Dr Matt Kearney emphasised the importance of better clinical management and the opportunity that Sustainability and Transformation Plans offer in tackling CVD. Finally, Prof. Jamie Waterall celebrated all that has been achieved so far through the NHS Health Check programme and PHE’s priorities going forward. You can find their presentations on the NHS Health Check website.
We also heard from Terry who shared his story on what having an NHS Health Check meant to him.
There was both learning and laughter across our three training sessions. For those of you that had the pleasure of attending the dementia or communicating cardiovascular disease risk training the delegate participation was second to none. The last training session of the day, on avoiding negative reactions, involved toy monkeys, and I know that everyone enjoyed the (unexpected) but very special guest appearance from superwoman.
In the round table discussions it was fantastic to hear delegates unpicking knotty issues and getting to the heart of delivery approaches which will provide high quality, equitable NHS Health Checks using innovative models.
The latest NHS Health Check research was shared by academics who have modelled the programme’s impact and on the findings from an evidence synthesis on the emerging evidence.
Delegates also shared their thoughts on what PHE could do to help commissioners make evidence based decisions. The marketplace was again a vibrant and engaging space with cholesterol and HbA1C testing offered by Alere and BHR. The voluntary and public sector also had a strong presence at the event with the smoothie bikes provided by Sustrans proving to be hugely popular.
We were able to showcase a field of 33 poster presentations covering a wide range of topics and delivered to an extremely high standard. Congratulations to Karen Simpson and Claire Devy from Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust who won the people’s vote for the best conference poster Our USP is TSP!
It was wonderful to hear such passion and enthusiasm over the course of the day and to see this captured in social media pictures as well as the pledges made by delegates on our virtual pledge wall – which we’ve translated into a word cloud. 
I now look forward to seeing this learning and enthusiasm transcend this one day event to support improvements in implementation and maximise the impact of the NHS Health Check and other important CVD prevention programmes over the coming year.
Finally, the success of this event relies heavily on the contributions of others, from the planning group, to the presentations and marketplace. So thank you to everyone who had an active role in contributing to this year’s conference. If you would like to help shape the content of our 2018 event please do get in touch at nhshealthchecks.mailbox@phe.gov.uk