Putting community health and wellbeing workers at the heart of primary care (NIHR Applied Research Collaboration Northwest London)

Summary

The Community Health and Wellbeing Worker (CHWW) model was devised in Brazil in the 1990s, where it is called the Family Health Strategy. There are over 250,000 CHWWs in Brazil, described as ‘the ears and eyes of the GP in the community’. They are full time members of the local primary care team and focus on a defined location, usually 200 households, keeping in regular contact with the residents. By visiting households at least once a month, the delivery of primary care becomes truly local and embedded into everyday life.

This article describes a pilot of a CHWW model by the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration Northwest London. It discusses how the project was established and includes case studies from the pilot.

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