Mapping Greener HealthcareMapping Greener Healthcare

Original Bid

Educational and health event aimed at getting staff walking on a regular basis before, during, or after work - with a focus on walking to work - or part of the way! Handing out flyers, displaying posters, engaging staff with useful tips and facts, and giving away merchandise to use on their walking trips. We will combine this with an info point on what they can do to get to and from work (i.e. walk) during the Olympic period if tubes and buses become congested. We will use our Dietician, Physiotherapy, Massage, and Olympic Planning teams to aid us, so it is a cross-hospital co-operation event.

Post Event Feedback

Walk to Work Week Event - 16th May 2012

We had a great lunchtime session in the brand new Lagoon restaurant in the Morgan Stanley Building at Great Ormond Street Hospital. We had an area set aside for staff, and patients/families/visitors (it was open to all), to come and look at a map of central London. We gave out information about walking in the area during the Olympics, and how the Games would affect tube and bus travel. We promoted walking as the alternative, part or all of the journey to and from work. We advertised the Walkit.com website where you can download a free map to accompany your journey to work. We also advertised the Olympic/TFL websites that show the travel hot spots during the Olympics. GOSH is uniquely placed between two very busy tube stations (Holborn and Russell Square) that will be heavily affected by the Games. We had advertised the event for a few weeks before it took place, and we encouraged staff to look on our Active Travel Website at GOSH, work out how they could walk part or all of the journey to and from work, and then come and tell us about it on the day of the event. On the website it would tell you how much energy you would expend and what your carbon footprint would be - we gave staff who took part in this one of the items that Living Streets kindly sent us. We worked in conjunction with the Olympic Committee at GOSH, and the Physiotherapy department - who both offered support and advice.

We have a few items left over, so we are re-promoting walking at our next lunchtime event on 19th June, when we are going to encourage people to carry on walking to and from work, and also to take the stairs at work.

We are also advertising and promoting the benefits of walking in our next edition of our "Health 4 Life" newsletter, which is out in June.

Our aim with the "Health 4 Life" campaign at GOSH is always to promote walking as a healthy alternative, and the recent good weather has made that a lot easier! Previously in April we had one of our walking tours of London, where we encourage staff to take a 2 hour walk with a guide. Along with being a great social event, and with obvious health benefits, it also allows our staff to get a better understanding of the logistics of walking above ground rather than taking the tube.