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Self Care Week
16 – 22 November 2020
Self Care Week is an annual national awareness week that focuses on embedding support for self care across communities, families and generations.
Live Self Care for Life is the strap line and organisations are being encouraged to use Self Care Week as a hook to help people “live” self care for a healthier, happier life.
Before you start to plan, it might be useful to take a look at our Eight Point Plan document which aims to provide a framework to help you plan the type of awareness week that best suits your needs.
Further help is available from organisations that have previously implemented Self Care Week initiatives, please see “Successfully Delivering Self Care Week: Case Studies and Practical Advice.” Or go to the best practice page for Self Care Week case studies.
Employers are invited to help improve their employee’s awareness of how to take better care of their physical health and mental wellbeing and here are some suggestions.
Increasingly, organisations are becoming more sophisticated in their endeavours to empower people to look after their own health better using Self Care Week as the hook. We are keen to recognise Self Care Week excellence and introduced the Self Care Week Awards. If you plan to submit an application following your Self Care Week activity, we would encourage you to consider the criteria before you start planning, to ensure your initiative stands the best chance of winning. A £500 prize is available for the winner (deadline for entries is 31 January 2021).
We understand that sometimes you want to create Self Care Week banners for events that can be used each year and so we have produced artwork for Self Care Week / Self Care for Life without dates:
Ideally, you want to reach as many people as possible with your Self Care Week messages and it can be helpful to approach your local media (press and broadcast) with news about your activities. You might like to do this by sending a press release and, in case these are helpful, here are three template press releases:
Below is a series of resources that can be used as part of your Self Care Week activities or outside Self Care Week.
Poster: Can the Pharmacist help with your symptoms?
Here is a poster signposting to the pharmacist for twelve common ailments that people often visit the GP with. Corresponding fact sheets are also available for each of the 12 ailments and can be used during interactions to support people to self care.
A helpful guide on how long you can expect the symptoms of cough, colds, sore throat and nasal congestion to last, what you can do to get better and the warning signs to look out for which mean you may need to seek professional help.
The leaflet also explains that antibiotics are not an effective treatment for winter symptoms such as cough, cold, sore throat, flu or nasal congestion.
It was produced by PAGB for the NHS Stay Well This Winter campaign.
It can be downloaded below:
When will I feel better?(print version – If you are printing this leaflet on both sides of paper, you may need to select “Flip on short edge” in your printer settings)
Treat Yourself Better poster
This poster has been produced for the ‘Treat Yourself Better with Pharmacist Advice’ campaign. It can be used to remind patients that antibiotics do not help common winter ailments and how long they can expect the symptoms to last for. It promotes the pharmacist as the first port of call for advice on winter ailments.
