What is a Health Improvement Practitioner?
A Health Improvement Practitioner contributes to local programmes that can help to transform people’s lifestyles and behaviours (e.g., stopping smoking, diet and exercise). As a Health Improvement Practitioner, you may be required to work with certain groups, which will vary based on the function and location.
A Health Improvement Practitioner is a member of a general practice team. They assist patients in achieving their goals by offering assistance and follow-up on mental health difficulties.
As a Health Improvement Practitioner, you will assist your clients in overcoming stress, bereavement, sadness, anxiety, domestic violence, alcohol and drugs, chronic pain, and a variety of other mental health issues. Health Improvement Practitioners assist customers in tough situations and give practical assistance with everyday functioning.
Responsibilities
As a Health Improvement Practitioner (specialist), you will be in charge of a specific area of health improvement (for example, specific services targeted at men, women or young people, or a particular condition such as diabetes or dementia ). Here are just a few of the responsibilities that you could have as a Health Improvement Practitioner:
- Collaborating with individuals, groups, communities, and organisations to influence and improve population health
- Helping to develop local health improvement programmes, including how they are monitored and evaluated
- Delivering presentations and training on topics such as child protection, sexual health, and healthy eating
- Providing specialised health improvement advice to people, groups, and communities in order to assist their care and education
- Training, supervising, and managing workers
- Creating public health papers and reports
- Encouraging public participation in the creation and assessment of your public health improvement efforts
- Assessing the efficacy of your operations by conducting extensive public health audits and public surveys and analysing the results.
- Using evidence to give organisations and communities highly specialised recommendations
- Sharing critical information (for example relating to child protection, sexual health)
- Keeping current public health information
- Maintaining mechanisms for gathering data on their clients’ health
- Creating publications and reports regarding health improvement information and efforts
Salary
The salary for Health Improvement Practitioners is primarily influenced by experience, sector and location.
The UK national average salary for a Health Improvement Practitioner is £30.649, ranging from £20,000 to £46,000 per year. The average London based salary for a Health Improvement Practitioner is £44,758, ranging from £23,000 to £88,000 per year. The average additional cash compensation amounts to £6,930.
Typical business hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. However, some flexibility is needed because working on the weekends and occasionally in the evenings will be necessary, particularly when managing community groups.
Job-sharing may be combined with part-time work, but this would need to be negotiated locally, just like career breaks would. It is occasionally possible to work for yourself or as a freelancer, for instance in consulting, writing, or research.
A Health Improvement Practitioner generally works at a GP clinic because they are part of the general practice team.
Because they are located in a general practice, there are no restrictions on who can see them as long as you are enrolled in the practice. Every day, appointments are available. Usually, to enable for same-day referrals, half of the day is dedicated to scheduled appointments and the other half to unscheduled appointments.
Depending on your level of experience and specialisation your duties will vary. Here are some examples of what to expect according to your level of experience:
As a Health Improvement Practitioner, you will contribute to local programmes that can assist to transform people’s lifestyles and behaviours (eg stopping smoking, diet and exercise). You may also be required to work with certain groups, which will vary based on the function and location. You may, for example, offer specialised services to young people, the elderly, persons with mental illnesses, or the GLBT community. Your work might involve the following:
- Providing health improvement advice to support client care and education
- Training staff
- Collaborating with external agencies to influence how they can help improve population health
- Maintaining systems for collecting data about their clients’ health
- Creating publications and reports about health improvement information and initiatives
Health Improvement Practitioners often have a bachelor’s degree in public health or a similar field, or equivalent expertise gained via training, advanced courses, and experience.
As an Advanced Health Improvement Practitioner, you will be dedicated to assisting people and groups in making good behavioural adjustments to enhance their health. You will also aim to eliminate health disparities (differences in the health of people or groups due to social, geographical, biological or other factors). You might be involved in the following types of work:
- Planning, providing, and creating specialised services (such as smoking cessation and sexual health)
- Communicating critical public health messages and promoting their services to appropriate populations and communities
- Collaborating with other agencies to attain their goals
- Monitoring and assessing the effectiveness and consequences of health-improvement programmes and initiatives
As a Health Improvement Practitioner (specialist), you will be in charge of a specific area of health improvement (for example, specific services targeted at men, women or young people, or a particular condition such as diabetes or dementia ). These are some examples of the kind of jobs you could do:
Public Health Improvement Practitioners collaborate with people from a variety of organisations, including the public, volunteer, and private sectors. Some of their responsibilities include:
- Collaborating with individuals, groups, communities, and organisations to influence and improve population health
- Helping to develop local health improvement programmes, including how they are monitored and evaluated
- Delivering presentations and training on topics such as child protection, sexual health, and healthy eating
- Providing specialised health improvement advice to people, groups, and communities in order to assist their care and education
- Training, supervising, and managing workers
- Creating public health papers and reports
Qualifications
Most of the time, you need a college degree in health promotion or public health to be a Health Improvement Practitioner. To be eligible for these courses, you must typically hold a GCE A-Levels certificate. Usually, English, maths, biology, chemistry, and physics are required as prerequisites or as a given level of knowledge. University prerequisites vary, and some have flexible entry requirements or require external study.
Most employers will require a bachelor’s degree or an equivalent qualification in a relevant field, such as:
- Health promotion
- Work with youth and the community
- Environmental health
- Dietetics
- Education
- Nutrition
- Health research
- Proffesional health studies
- Public health.
You might be able to get in with an HND if you have a lot of relevant experience or a relevant professional qualification. Those with the appropriate foundation degree or diploma may apply for a one-year top-up programme in public health and health promotion.
A postgraduate degree isn’t always necessary, but it can be helpful and may give you an edge when looking for work. Some higher-level jobs, especially those that involve working at the strategic level, require a postgraduate degree. Health development, public health, and health promotion are among the topics covered.
Some people who enter this field as a second career frequently come from the following backgrounds:
- Medicine
- Environmental health
- Social work
- Teaching
- Nursing.
Skills
Must have skills:
Some of the skills that you will have to acquire or possess in order to become a Health Improvement Practitioner include:
- Strong networking skills
- Decision-making skills for acting on policies and strategies
- The ability to establish and maintain good relationships with people and organisations, including public, private, community, and voluntary bodies
- Leadership skills and the capacity to influence others’ health decisions
- Good presentation skills for speaking to groups
- Knowledge of health-related issues
- Initiative and the capacity to solve problems
- Compassion for those who are dealing with adversity
- Capacity to oversee projects and conduct research
- Effective time management skills
- Creativity and the capacity to meet objectives.
Work experience
Employers will look for evidence of your interest in enhancing your health, as well as ideally some prior experience.
A health centre or a neighbourhood community organisation are good places to complete related volunteer work or job shadowing. To learn more about the opportunities available, get in touch with your neighbourhood NHS trust.
It’s also beneficial to have additional experience that shows your involvement with the community. This might entail getting involved in the neighbourhood community centre or working with a nonprofit organisation that runs outreach programmes for local residents.
Career prospects
The majority of employers encourage continuing professional development (CPD), and some will be understanding if you decide to pursue a postgraduate degree. An employer might occasionally grant a day off for studying.
You might choose to sign up for the United Kingdom Public Health Register (UKPHR). Although this is optional, it can help you advance professionally because it will show that you are a qualified health professional.
With experience, you can advance to more senior positions like assistant manager or Advanced Health Improvement Practitioner. Increased project and employee accountability as well as more strategic work will be required.
You could pursue specialised training in public health within the NHS, which would then enable you to apply for roles such as director of public health, where you would set the broad goals for public health in the neighbourhood.
Small health improvement units might not have many opportunities for promotion, so any senior positions that do open up will face fierce competition. As a result, you might need to make a sideways move to a different organisation, which will enable you to gain experience in different fields like governmental organisations or nonprofits.
A structured career path to management level may be available if you transfer to a larger organisation. A secondment to another department or area of work may also be an option. Another choice is to start a career as a free-lance consultant.
Related Courses
BSc (Hons) Collaborative Health & Social Care
This three year full-time course delivered by University of the West of Scotland London is an excellent method to advance in the healthcare or social work fields. Thought at their London campus, this course aims to teach students the principles of health policy, with an emphasis on the relationship between social and health care. Some other related courses that you should consider when looking into becoming a Health Improvement Practitioner include:
- Health promotion
- Work with youth and the community
- Environmental health
- Dietetics
- Education
- Nutrition
- Health research
- Public health.
