22.11.2021

Health Spot receives Special Commendation at the 2021 Health Service Journal Awards

Huge congratulations to our Health Spot team, who were Highly Commended for the amazing work they do at this year’s HSJ (Health Service Journal) Awards!

Health Spot, which offers medical appointments and wellbeing support to young people age 11-19 (or up to 25 with additional needs), received special commendation in the Primary Care Innovation of the Year category.

The service’s partners – Tower Hamlets GP Care Group, Spotlight (Poplar HARCA) and NHS North East London Clinical Commissioning Group – swapped doctors scrubs for black tie for the prestigious annual awards event on Thursday 18 November.

Held at Evolution London in Battersea Park, the awards shined a light on healthcare excellence and celebrated teams and individuals who have been a source of life-changing best practice across 23 different categories.

Dr Julia Moody, Tower Hamlets CCG Clinical Lead for Children and Young People said: “Every young person should have a trusted, and trustworthy adult to ensure their rights to healthcare are respected, for many that will be a youth worker.

“It has been an absolute privilege to join in with youth workers at Spotlight and create a new kind of Primary Care, one that young people have designed for themselves.”

The Health Spot team at the Annual HSJ Awards ceremony

Developed after young people raised concerns about the struggles they face accessing healthcare and launched during the first Covid-19 lockdown in 2020, Health Spot is a specialist extended GP hub offering friendly, confidential and specially-tailored medical appointments to young people in East London. Young people also helped to co-design the service to make sure Health Spot is accessible to those it aims to support.

The service now runs weekly from our flagship centre in Langdon Park and offers young people the option of help and advice from our youth workers throughout the whole process, along with additional specialist mental health counselling and therapy, sexual health advice and alcohol and substance misuse support from Docklands Outreach and Safe East.

Young people’s voices continue to be championed by the youth work team who ensure the service remains relevant and able to meet young people’s needs.

“I am honestly so grateful that I have Health Spot to fall back on when my health is not great,” said one Health Spot service user. “Health Spot has benefitted me massively and if I did not have Spotlight to turn to then I wouldn’t know what to do.”

Information on Health Spot and the team behind the service is available on our website.