On Friday Caerphilly People First members and volunteers attended the Annual Health Check Hackathon organised by Cwm Taff People First. We met with other People First groups, organisations and day services. It was lovely to see everyone working together. 🤝

💡 What is a Hackathon?

A hackathon is when people come together to share ideas and be creative about a topic. Everyone works in groups to create things like poems, songs, videos or drama. Our group wrote a poem about Annual Health Checks. ✍️ ⭐ Gethin did a fantastic job helping to read the poem to everyone. Well done Gethin! 👏 Other groups wrote songs and performed them. 🎶 The songs were fantastic and helped raise awareness about why health checks are so important.

🎭 One group performed a drama showing: ✔️ What a good Annual Health Check appointment looks like ❌ What a bad appointment can look like. It was a brilliant demonstration and helped everyone understand how doctors and nurses should support people with learning disabilities. 👏

🎬 We also watched the video we helped make with the Learning Disability Nurses about Annual Health Checks. It was great to see it being shared.

🏥 What is an Annual Health Check?

An Annual Health Check is a free check-up at the doctor for people with learning disabilities. It helps people stay healthy and talk about any worries. Our poem explained what people need at their appointment, such as:

• Clear information
• Time to talk
• Support if needed
• Being listened to ❤️

💬 A big thank you to the tutors, who are very talented, creative and lovely to work with. 👏 A massive thank you to Dawn and her team for organising such a brilliant event. Days like this are so important to raise awareness about Annual Health Checks. Some people in attendance said they still haven’t had a health check, and some had never even heard about them before. That shows why events like this really matter. 👏 Thank you to everyone involved for such a brilliant and inspiring day.