Blogs
Sharing thoughts and eureka moments
Reflecting on our work, what we’re learning and the latest about the health challenges we focus on
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Improving fast food in Southwark: a data-driven approach
13 January, 2020
Anthony Lobo from Southwark Council shares how we're working together to use the Mayor’s Healthier Catering Commitment framework to drive local improvements to fast food locally.
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Learning from London’s Foodscape
10 January, 2020
How does urban street design shape the way young people experience food in Southwark? Sophia Schuff from urban design planners, Gehl, shares how we got under the skin of young people’s daily habits to understand how the built environment could improve childhood obesity.
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Collaborating for the future to improve children's health
13 December, 2019
Our Portfolio Manager, Jessica Attard, shares what we’re learning from our collaboration with The Consumer Goods Forum and about how to positively change food environments to tackle childhood obesity.
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Looking back and thinking ahead – a message from our Chief Executive
13 December, 2019
As the decade draws to a close our Chief Executive, Kieron Boyle, reflects on what’s changed at the Charity over the past ten years, and what that might mean for the next ten.
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Supporting our Trust in 2019
13 December, 2019
As we look back at 2019 our Trust Funding Director, Colin Kinloch, shares what he's most proud of and how we have continued to support the best clinical experience for patients and the staff treating them.
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How is our work on childhood obesity informing Government policy?
31 October, 2019
Sarah Hickey, Programme Director of our childhood obesity programme, explores recent developments in UK health policies, and how the evidence we've gathered has informed wider scale action.
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Designing financial interventions to help slow down people's progression to multiple long-term health conditions
04 October, 2019
Alongside Demos, we explored the connection between people's personal finances and poor health, and identified four key ways to better design financial interventions to help people with multiple long-term conditions.
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Our urban health learning project - the ten global cities we look to learn from
04 October, 2019
Our Policy and Partnerships Manager, Rowena Estwick, shares how we're working to understand the opportunities and barriers to equitable health in urban areas, comparing our boroughs to neighbourhoods elsewhere in the world.
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Work, finance and housing: addressing key social factors of multiple long-term conditions
30 September, 2019
Our Portfolio Managers, Rohan Martyres and Matt Towner, explore the social risk factors strand of our programme on multiple long-term conditions, and how we plan to support improvements to wider social aspects of how people live, work and age.
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Giving families access to healthy options to tackle childhood obesity
30 September, 2019
Our Portfolio Manager, Carole Coulon, reflects on the homes strand of our childhood obesity programme, the challenges we've faced, and how we're testing projects with partners to improve children's health in homes and early years settings.
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Supporting schools to provide healthy options to improve children's health
30 September, 2019
Our Portfolio Manager, Rebecca Sunter, delves into the work we're doing with schools to reduce childhood obesity, what we've learned, and what it'll take to make impactful change throughout school environments.
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Creating change across our streets to tackle childhood obesity
30 September, 2019
Our Portfolio Manager, Jessica Attard, explores what we've learned so far through the streets strand of our childhood obesity programme, how we're working across sectors to address our obesogenic streets, and what are next steps are.
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Addressing childhood obesity in schools - what the evidence shows
30 September, 2019
Teaming up with Behavioural Insights Team, we explore why targetting school settings is vital in helping to reduce the childhood obesity inequality gap, and how we can support a ‘whole school culture’ to have the greatest impact.
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Slowing down progression to multiple long-term conditions through better healthcare
26 September, 2019
Our Portfolio Manager, Michael Parsons, explores our vision for what healthcare is - place-based, insight-led and more than just disease - and how we plan to intervene through our healthcare strand to slow people's progression from one to many multiple conditions.
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Tackling the health effects of poor air quality will take working and learning with many
24 September, 2019
Our Programme Director, Kate Langford, explores the issue of air pollution in cities, how we can learn from others making headway towards change and the opportunities available to find innovative solutions in London.
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Foot off the gas pedal – developing our strategy to slow down people’s progression to multiple long-term conditions
20 September, 2019
Two years into our multiple long-term conditions programme, our Programme Director, Barbara Reichwein, shares what we've learned and how we’re applying it to test solutions in Lambeth and Southwark.
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What will it take to close the gap? Two years into our childhood obesity programme
20 September, 2019
Two years into our childhood obesity programme, our Programme Director, Sarah Hickey explores how we identified our goals, what they mean in practice, and how we track and measure our impact.
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How meaningful employment can help people living with long-term conditions
18 September, 2019
As part of our multiple long-term conditions programme, we are exploring the potential role that work can play in slowing people’s progression from one long-term condition to many.
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What visiting a city farm reminded me about health in the UK and the US
06 August, 2019
Erica Levine from the Arnold Institute for Global Health writes about our learning partnership, comparing efforts in improving health in New York and London.
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Challenges of coordinating local activity to tackle childhood obesity
18 June, 2019
As we enter the next investment phase for our Faraday Neighbourhood Scheme, we've been reflecting on the lessons we’ve learnt.
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International views: What actions today can boost future health in our cities?
04 June, 2019
We asked some of the international experts speaking on at our joint event with the King's Fund what actions must happen today to make sure that future health in cities is equitable and thriving.
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Understanding urban health: Thinking large and small
28 May, 2019
Improving population health in towns and cities requires both an overarching city-wide strategy and a granular understanding of the needs of local neighbourhoods, as Chris Naylor and Kieron Boyle explain.
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16 experts on how place-based approaches can improve our future health: part 2
14 May, 2019
In our work addressing complex health issues prevalent in inner-city London, we take a place-based approach. We’re interested in exploring how others view place-based approaches and their value in helping to improve people’s health in the long term.
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16 experts on how place-based approaches can improve our future health: part 1
14 May, 2019
In our work addressing complex health issues prevalent in inner-city London, we take a place-based approach. We’re interested in exploring how others view place-based approaches and their value in helping to improve people’s health in the long term.
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4 things we've learned taking a place-based approach to urban health issues
14 May, 2019
Our Director of Funding, Jon Siddall, shares lessons we've learned from taking a place-based approach to improving urban health.
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Our impact investing: one year on
25 March, 2019
Since we committed to our first investment, we have learned a lot about where we can focus to best achieve our goals and what some of the key challenges are going to be.
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Multiple long-term conditions: five lessons
26 February, 2019
Ahead of the Nuffield Trust Health Policy Summit, our Chief Executive, Kieron Boyle, discusses the five things we've learned about multiple long-term conditions.
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London is tackling child obesity
08 February, 2019
Paul Lindley, Chair of the London Child Obesity Taskforce, discusses the impact of new initiatives, the bold vision of London’s Childhood Obesity Taskforce and how we can all chip in to make a difference.
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A message for our partners and supporters
19 December, 2018
2018 has been a year of deepening our understanding of urban health, of learning and sharing, and of building the foundations to become a more effective funder and a stronger fundraising charity.
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Social prescribing – from the margins to the mainstream
02 November, 2018
Social prescribing has gone from the margins to the mainstream over the last few years. Our Programme Manager, Kate Langford, explores the key shifts in culture and practice needed to help scale social prescribing to something that every healthcare professional has in their toolbox.
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Creative healthier high streets
22 October, 2018
We partnered on the Healthy High Streets programme, which challenged three London high streets in Haringey, Lambeth and Southwark to try new ideas to make our high streets healthier for children and families.
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What we’ve learned developing our programmes
07 August, 2018
Last year we launched two long-term programmes of work – on childhood obesity and multiple long-term conditions. Our development phase had a profound impact on the way we designed, and are now delivering, them.
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The long-term impacts on our health we don’t think enough about
26 July, 2018
I have some connection with this interesting new research; not only is the Richmond Group of Charities, of which Age UK is a member, working with Guy’s and St Thomas’ Charity on a new taskforce on multiple conditions, I have lived in Lambeth for most of my life.
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The relationship between physical and mental health
17 July, 2018
Over the years, we have become more and more familiar with messages about how we take care of our physical health – encouragement to think about what we eat, take regular exercise and to be aware of the signs of developing a major health condition.
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People’s journeys to multimorbidity start early – and so should care
09 July, 2018
The impact of multiple long-term conditions on the lives of individuals, their families, the communities in which they live and the wider health and care system, is ever-growing.
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From one to many report: View from our Chief Executive
09 July, 2018
At some point in our lives most of us will develop a long-term health condition. Many of us will develop more than one. But how we each get to that point varies hugely.
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Happy 70th: Our role in the NHS is as exciting as ever
04 July, 2018
I grew up caring for my mother. During those years, I was in contact with the NHS often. Earlier this year, I saw the life of a close family member saved by a team across two hospitals in Yorkshire.
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Chapter two – getting going
29 June, 2018
There’s a lot to be optimistic about in the government’s new childhood obesity strategy. The thing we need more than anything to beat this challenge is leadership – and a call to halve childhood obesity levels by 2030 provides exactly that.
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Families and Food: how can we help families swim against the current?
22 June, 2018
Guy’s and St Thomas’ Charity and Shift have been working together, as part of the Charity’s new childhood obesity programme. We’re interested in how food environments help or hinder people to live well. Why? To improve the availability and access to nutritious diets for families living in the more deprived areas of Lambeth and Southwark.
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What listening to communities in Southwark told us about child obesity
12 June, 2018
We have developed a transformative partnership between our communities and local statutory services in these two disadvantaged areas in Southwark. The collaboration puts local parents in the lead to improve their and their children’s health and developmental outcomes.