Healthwise was established in 1989 as an independent health promotion service. For many years the core of Healthwise's work involved providing helplines to the general public, professionals and colleagues in the areas of health, drugs, alcohol and sexual health including contraception, HIV and AIDS.

Healthwise provided the NHS Health Information Service (HIS) for 17 health districts. The HIS was the fore runner of the modern NHS Direct service. Healthwise was involved in the pilot for the NHS Direct service in Liverpool. During this time health advice on a variety of health topics were given to callers by a bank of trained volunteers and information workers.

Healthwise dealt with 750,000 calls a year across several helpline services including:

• The National AIDS and Sexual Health Helpline
• The National Drugs Helpline
• Drinkline - the national alcohol information and advice line for England and Wales (and later Scotland)
• The Contraception Education Service for Wales
• later renamed - Sexual Health Wales

Healthwise were involved in the running of several successful health campaigns including Diabetes UK. They also operated emergency information response services for issues as diverse as The Retained Organ Commission, PostNatal Depression and various NHS health alerts.

Training for the staff on these helplines was delivered in-house, comprehensive training programmes were developed accredited with the Open College Network (OCN). In response to demand for quality training from a variety of professional, voluntary, community, statutory and non-statutory groups, the training team developed and delivered a variety of training courses in the areas of telephone skills, counselling skills, drugs, alcohol and sexual health education.

Over the following years Healthwise Training Services have continued to succesfully design and deliver well-researched training programmes to a variety of organisations and groups. All the training programmes are up-to-date and designed specifically to match each target group.

Alex Mitchell Healthwise Training Services trainer says: "We believe that people learn best in a relaxed and supportive environment", all Healthwise programmes are therefore delivered in an informal and safe learning environment. (see more about Methodology)

In January 2005 Healthwise Training Services joined The Social Partnership. Based in Castle Street in Liverpool city centre, The Social Partnership is one of the UK's foremost organisations at enabling people to acheive their potential no matter what problems have been encountered. The Social Partnership can help turn lives around so that people are happier, healthier, safer and feel valued.

Current projects include:

• Fixers ILM Liverpool
• Fixers ILM Halton
• Fixers ILM Wirral
• Fixers ILM Skelmersdale
• Progress2Work Liverpool South
• Progress2Work Liverpool North & Sefton
• Progress2Work Halton & St Helens
• Progress2Work LinkUP Liverpool
• Progress2Work LinkUP Wirral
• Transit Liverpool

The Social Partnership aims to reintegrate socially excluded people into the community both socially and economically through the provision of education, training and employment opportunities.

The Social Partnership is a registered charity, number 1043261 sponsored by New Opportunities Fund,Liverpool City Council, European Social Fund, Halton Borough Council, Royal & Sun Alliance, Communities Against Drugs, Neighbourhood Renewal Fund, Capital City Partnership, Job Centre Plus, Elect, Leap for Health, Pilkington Trust, Henry Smith, The Tudor Trust, Cream and Access to Industry and many more

To contact The Social Partnership e-mail generalenquiries@tsp.org.uk, or ring 0151 258 1199

The Social Partnership website is available on www.tsp.org.uk

back to main page

top