CHCP CIC to provide health improvement services in Wigan

09 March, 2015

City Health Care Partnership CIC are expanding their business across the Pennines, having won a third tender to provide services at the other end of the M62, this time in Greater Manchester. The health improvement service in Wigan will join stop smoking teams in Knowsley and St Helens on Merseyside under the CHCP CIC banner.   

The new service is worth £1.4m and is a two-year contract in the first instance, providing holistic health and weight management to the 320,000 people who live in Wigan and Leigh. Reducing the number of people in the area who smoke will be a priority for the team, along with improving the wider health and wellbeing of the population through providing advice and signposting to other services. 

Giles Bridgeman, head of sexual and public health services at CHCP CIC, is looking forward to working with the team in Wigan. “We are planning to open two ‘shops’ similar to Health Central in Hull, one in Wigan and one in Leigh. They will be similar to Health Central’s successful model, including Wellpoint kiosks where people can drop in to review their weight, blood pressure and do other health checks. The kiosks have worked really well in Hull and we are looking forward to giving the residents of Wigan the chance to use them.” 

CHCP CIC’s chief executive, Andrew Burnell, sees winning this new tender as confirmation that the company’s model as a co-owned social business is the way forward for health care. “As a ‘for better profit’ company we reinvest our profits back into our services, our staff and the communities in which we work, whilst providing the highest quality care to the people who need it. I’m delighted that we are able to expand this model into more areas and we are looking forward to working with the team from Wigan to bring further improvements to the health of people in their area.”