Health and advice toolkit
The Department of Health funded Citizens Advice to develop a suite of tools that the wider advice sector can use to identify the links between advice and health.
Health and poverty report
The Health and poverty report [ 0.71 mb] demonstrates how advice services have a positive impact on health inequalities in local areas.
Advice services can use this report to provide evidence of the value of advice to commissioning bodies, including Health and Wellbeing Boards and Clinical Commissioning Groups.
The report is suitable for organisations providing advice across benefits, debt, employment and financial capability. As a generic, pre-written template, it has been designed to enable advice services to:
- Establish the context: present an overview of the social determinants of health inequalities in a local area – especially deprivation
- Report on impact: demonstrate how advice services tackles the causes of health inequalities – for example, inserting service statistics on advice issues
A short, handy guide on how to use the report [ 32 kb] is available.
Health and poverty toolkit
The Health and poverty tool provides a survey template to evidence the impact local advice services can have on client health and wellbeing. The survey evidences the impact of advice on a clients circumstances e.g. housing, finances, debt, employment and mental wellbeing using the short WEMWB scale.
There are two variations of the toolkit. The toolkit guide [ 0.55 mb] gives a step by step guide to the research process and helps you identify which survey approach is right for you.
The single stage survey approach collects client survey responses after advice (up to six weeks after advice is given).
- Single stage survey guidance [ 2.6 mb]
- Single stage survey questionnaire [ 58 kb]
- Single stage survey analyser [ 2.2 mb]
The two stage survey approach collects a baseline of client survey responses at the time of advice and compares this with a follow up client survey after advice (up to six weeks after advice is given).