People working in public-facing roles should be given training to enable them to have conversations around physical and mental health when dealing with customers, a report has argued.

The report, What are you talking about?, from the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) has said employees in public-facing workplaces as well as those working in care homes, gyms and schools could all be doing more to kickstart conversations with the public around health and wellbeing.

The RSPH is calling for people working in public-facing roles to be offered extra training to give them the confidence to start these sorts of conversations.

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Encouraging everyday conversations in this way had the potential to influence healthy behaviours, such as exercise, drinking less, and quitting smoking, as well as signposting to further support on issues like mental health and the menopause, the society has argued.

Its polling of nearly 2,000 adults found that, across a range of settings where the public and staff are regularly talking, most Britons would like to see more training to promote physical and mental wellbeing.

The RSPH is also using the report to promote its own training resource, called Making every contact count (MECC), which trains professionals to help them integrate conversations about health and wellbeing into routine practice.

It is also arguing doing more to encourage even small behaviour changes among the public will have an impact on the overall health of the UK and help to reduce pressure on the NHS.

RSPH chief executive William Roberts said: “There are millions of conversations that happen every day that could be so much more impactful if health came up.

“There’s a perception that as a nation we prefer shying away from talking about our health and wellbeing. We need to move away from this and get talking.

“Prevention in its truest form is about empowering the public to stay well and out of hospitals. Making that a reality will mean embedding the ethos of prevention across society through interventions like MECC,” Roberts added.

 

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