Looking Back at ICM's 2025 Health & Wellbeing Day

Our annual Health and Wellbeing Day event, organised every spring by our brilliant Integration Team, aims to encourage health and wellbeing service use and raise awareness within the local community.

We want to say a huge thank you to our staff and volunteers for organising and supporting the event to make sure the day ran smoothly and that everyone felt welcome, particularly to our Integration Team Manager  Anjali who was instrumental in making the day such a success.

BRINGING HEALTHCARE TO THE COMMUNITY:

On May 21st, ICM held our annual Health and Wellbeing day at Burlington Baptist Church, just to the south of Westgate Ward. We know that accessing health services can be difficult for the communities we work with, so we wanted to bring the health services to them. We were joined by over 20 organisations covering the full spectrum of health and wellbeing needs, including the Be Well Bus providing free health checks and advice. We even ran our Plant stall giving everyone the opportunity to buy both indoor and outdoor herbs and flowers to support their wellbeing. 

5+ Adult Health Checks performed by the team

5+ SiSU checks

10+ BP checks and conversations with SPOT Wellbeing

10+ conversations by Suffolk Pride

30+ conversations by Suffolk Family Carers

Most importantly the day introduced local people to services they didn’t know about or wouldn’t have usually felt confident accessing. Of attendees surveyed over 75% said that they learned something new and would be making lifestyle changes thanks to attending the event. 

“It was a wonderful day and very useful information. Thank you for everything.”

- Event Attendee

CREATING CHANGE TOGETHER:

Local buy-in is absolutely vital to achieving better community health, so we’re so lucky to have such a fantastic range of health organisations, charities, and community groups here in Ipswich ready to get involved. We were joined by a whole host of brilliant organisations who provide vital health and wellbeing services in and around Ipswich including:

Ace Anglia • ActivLives • Alzheimer's Society • Be Well Bus • Cancer Support Suffolk • Community Action Suffolk • Community Enterprise Catalyst • Empower to Wellness • Feel Good Suffolk • Future Female Society • Healthwatch Suffolk • Healthy Living Service • Ipswich Romanian Community • Leading Lives • Realise Futures • SNEE Maternity and Neonatal Service • SPOT Wellbeing • Suffolk Family Carers • Suffolk GP Federation • Suffolk Pride • Thinkclusive • Very Important Invitation • Wellbeing Suffolk • Youth Enquiry Service

“I love coming to the Health and Wellbeing event, its benefit to the local community is invaluable. It is an opportunity to network and source the best support for all the people we work with.”

- Hayley Boggis, SCC Healthy Living

We were also pleased to be able to give a very warm welcome to recently appointed Ipswich Mayor Stefan Long, and Suffolk High Sheriff's Chaplain, Christine Laverock at our Health and Wellbeing day. They took time to talk to many vital organisations, really appreciating the work that they do in the Health and Wellbeing sector.

“It's been great to see all the organisations contributing to the health and well-being of those living in our county.”

- Christine Laverock

IMPROVING LOCAL HEALTH OUTCOMES YEAR ROUND:

We believe everyone should have equal access to Health Services and support. According to the NHS, people living in areas of high deprivation, and those from Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities are the most at risk of experiencing health inequalities.

Our annual Health and Wellbeing day is one way we try to break down barriers to accessing Health Services within the local community, both by making people aware of the services available locally, and by bringing the services to them.

However our Health and Wellbeing Day is, as it says, just a day, whilst we are committed all year round. Some of our other recent activities include:

• Our Maternity Project, which supports migrant women from the Westgate Ward area of Ipswich, aiming to increase connection, communication and engagement, while building trust in local maternity and health services.

• We provide translations for local health projects, thereby increasing reach and fostering collaboration between our volunteers and community champions and local health projects.

• Our English for Health course, which teaches people how to speak, read and write English in order to increase confidence and wellbeing, and promotes understanding around personal health and health services.

• Tackling priority health issues like  hypertension through our Westgate Wellbeing project including pop up health events, nature walks, and a monthly social club.

• Developing our Westgate Wellbeing Strategy to ensure grassroots engagement and collaboration to empower communities to access services and improve their own health and wellbeing

  
  

Find out more in our recent blog post: Health Begins in Community: How ICM is Supporting Wellbeing in Ipswich

GET INVOLVED:

Health and Wellbeing is a vital part of the work we do at ICM, if you have an event you think we should attend, run a service you think we should know about, or otherwise want to be involved in this area our work, get in touch at hello@ipswichcm.org.uk