Locala’s Health and Wellbeing’s services are going out on the road to offer help and support in the heart of our communities.

As part of a 12-month pilot programme, Locala has a “Clinic in a Van” which will be used by some of its services to visit sites across three areas – Kirklees, the Bradford district and Tameside.

The van is being used by services including:

- Sexual Health outreach work across all four areas.

- GPs from the Whitehouse Centre in Huddersfield will use the van to provide outreach services at the Huddersfield Mission, offering targeted healthcare support to the homeless, people in emergency accommodation and asylum seekers in the area. The Wound Care Team will also visit the Huddersfield Mission.

- The Immunisations Team will be visiting communities across Kirklees during the school holidays to offer catch-up sessions for any vaccinations that children and young people have missed during school terms. Sessions dayes and times will be added below as new sessions are arranged.

The van is specially designed to provide healthcare services with a waiting area and a separate clinical room - meeting all the Infection Prevention and Control standards you’d expect from a GP surgery or Community Health Centre.

The schedule for the van is:

Mondays

1pm to 5pm - TFD Centre, Broadstone Way, Bradford BD4 9BU - Bradford Sexual Health

Tuesdays

Tameside Sexual Health team outreach work

Wednesdays

10am to 2pm - Huddersfield Mission -  (Whitehouse Centre and Wound Care Teams - alternate weeks)

Fridays

9am to 4pm - Whitehouse Centre will be at various locations on Fridays providing support for specific target groups of patients. 

In addition , the Clinic in a Van also attends community events with upcoming activities including: 

- Locala Community Event - Al-Hikmah Centre, Batley, 1pm to 5pm - November 25th.

Victoria Vallance, Locala’s Chief Nurse, said: “We are constantly looking for new ways to help people in our communities access health and wellbeing services as easily as possible and this is an exciting way of doing just that.

“We know that for some people having to travel to a clinic or appointment is a barrier. So, by bringing our Clinic in a Van to a number of different locations we can help them get the help and support they need to improve their health and wellbeing.”