"Vanessa has a very business focussed approach to her work and is always striving to support individual and functional learning requirements. She works pro-actively to identify issues and always delivers what she has committed to. Overall Vanessa demonstrates her very flexible, strategic and operational approach to working with a variety of business managers, she has a wealth of experience across the L&D agenda and through her communication skills she is able to develop the 'right' solution to fit the 'right' requirement.".

Head of Training Services

Health

ARDAN TRAINING CONSULTANCY LTD is based in Beverley East Yorkshire and operates both locally in the Hull and Humber area and nationally.

Ardan training is providing health improvement courses to try to address the issue of Understanding how populations and individuals can improve their health, in direct response to the Government White paper-Healthy Lives, Healthy People: Our strategy for public health in England.

This White Paper has generated real enthusiasm for a new approach to public health and a commitment across local authorities and the public health profession to improving the health of the public across the life course.

This White Paper outlines a radical shift in the way we tackle public health challenges. We have to be bold because so many of the lifestyle-driven health problems we see today are already at alarming levels.

• Britain is now the most obese nation in Europe.
• We have among the worst rates of sexually transmitted infections recorded.
• We have a relatively large population of problem drug users.
• We have rising levels of harm from alcohol.
• Smoking alone claims over 80,000 lives every year.
• Experts estimate that tackling poor mental health could reduce our overall disease burden by nearly a quarter.
• Health inequalities between rich and poor have been getting progressively worse.
• We still live in a country where the wealthy can expect to live longer than the poor.

The dilemma for government is this: it is simply not possible to promote healthier lifestyles through Whitehall dictating to us how we should live.

Recent years have proved that one ­size-fits-all solutions are no good when public health challenges vary from one neighbourhood to the next. But we cannot sit back while, in spite of all this, so many people are suffering such severe lifestyle-driven ill health and such acute health inequalities.

We need a new approach that empowers individuals to make healthy choices and gives communities the tools to address their own, particular needs.

We all need to support this strategy by promoting a better understanding of how to improve health.

A fuller story on the health of England is set out in Our Health and Wellbeing Today, published to accompany the White Paper.

The opportunity – and the challenge – is stark, for example:

• By improving maternal health, we could give our children a better start in life; reduce infant mortality and the numbers of low birth-weight babies.
• Taking better care of our children’s health and development could improve educational attainment and reduce the risks of mental illness, unhealthy lifestyles, road deaths and hospital admissions due to tooth decay.
• Being in work leads to better physical and mental health, and we could save the UK up to £100 billion a year by reducing working-age ill health.
• Changing adults’ behaviour could reduce premature death, illness and costs to society, avoiding a substantial proportion of cancers, vascular dementia’s and over 30% of circulatory diseases; saving the NHS the £2.7 billion cost of alcohol abuse; and saving society the £13.9 billion a year spent on tackling drug-fuelled crime.
• We could prevent many of the yearly excess winter deaths – 35,000 in 2008/2009- through warmer housing, and prevent further deaths through full take-up of seasonal flu vaccinations.

For more details on courses offered please contact us.