EPP (Expert Patients Programme)
The Expert Patients Programme (EPP) is a free course for anyone living with one, or more, long-term health condition in Croydon. The six-week course is designed to boost your health and wellbeing, find solutions to common problems and help you feel more confident to manage your condition.
The Expert Patients Programme complements the care and support you already receive from healthcare professionals and will make you aware of other services and resources available in your area.
Weekly sessions cover a range of topics including:
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Managing symptoms
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Dealing with pain and tiredness
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Coping with feelings of depression and anxiety
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Healthy eating
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Exercise
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Managing stress
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Planning for the future
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Communicating with family, friends and health care
professionals -
Finding other health services in the community
LTC (Long Term Conditions)
The Asian Resource Centre of Croydon in partnership with the Croydon BME Forum are working on behalf of the South West London Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and Croydon NHS, to provide our local community with education and support in managing long-term health conditions in Croydon.
These conditions are:
Diabetes

Respiratory Illnesses (like COPD)

High Blood Pressure (Hypertension)

Summary of Findings
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Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic people have a higher risk of developing long-term health conditions such as, high blood pressure and diabetes type 2, and at a younger age.
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23% of the Croydon population had 2 or more long-term health conditions between 2015 – 2017.
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The burden of long-term health conditions on a patient's life due to poor self- management has led to an increase in the number of strokes, amputations and recurrent emergency admissions for care associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD), respiratory and diabetes problems.
The project will focus on reaching out to BME communities to help:
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Identify those already diagnosed with 1 or more long-term conditions
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Provide support to those diagnosed so they can self-manage their condition(s) with the necessary support from their health practitioners
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Educate the undiagnosed population on the risk factors of developing these conditions soon
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Teach management of these risks to reduce the likelihood of the condition occurring or provide support on diagnosis
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One of our goals is to filter educational information and support through volunteers in the local community, so that the support can be localised.
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We are looking for volunteers from influencers, leaders, health advocates and supporters of social prescribing from within our Croydon Community.
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You are the sort of person who has built sustainable relationships with residents and can help share health literacy, coaching and signposting to relevant services.
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You can provide a local dialogue between our funders and the needs of our community.
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No previous experience is necessary for this role.
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Free accredited and certified training and support will be provided to you, as well as reimbursement of specified expenses incurred.

Health Champion Volunteers – The Asian Resource Centre of Croydon needs you!
ARCC are here to support our community. It is our intention to increase the awareness and information provided to our harder-to-reach communities, who do not regularly access GP’s or the NHS services.
We will educate you on risk factors, how to provide signposting to health and wellbeing professionals, and support you to use encouragement and coaching to help develop a healthier society.
It is our mission to leave a health literacy legacy for future generations.
Events
Part of this project invites you to a series of live events where participants can attend to receive information and advice on key risk factors and meet with health care professionals from the Croydon borough.
Our health talks are hosted at various Croydon community locations and on Zoom, the recordings can be found on our YouTube page.
We love having question and answer sessions on any topic around long-term health conditions, so please keep an eye out for our upcoming events, as you will be able to ask your own individual questions.
To keep up to date with all our LTC events please subscribe to our mailing list:
A few examples of our Past Events:
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Diabetes and Fasting
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COPD Information and myth busting
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High Blood Pressure: Signs, Symptoms and Risk Factors
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Men’s Health
