John Havard is a GP at Saxmundham Health in Suffolk
It is now a scary fact that the majority of the UK population is overweight. If you are normal weight, it follows that you are now in a minority group. The nation is sleep walking into all the secondary consequences of obesity so it is not a shock to realise that this generation will die younger than their parents (despite all the medical advances) because they are killing themselves with fattening, cheap food.
This is the age of ‘influencers’ and so I thought about who might be recruited to spread vital public health messages within communities. Ideally, I wanted someone who had practical and personal experience of the health issue – someone who had successfully tackled the problem and could tell others what it was really like. I also needed someone who met lots of people in the community regularly and who spent time with them on a one-to-one basis delivering a service.
An obvious solution sprang to mind – The Barbers of Saxmundham…
The barbers have the capacity to save more lives than the doctors. Not since the Middle Ages have doctors needed barbers so much!
People like Saxmundham barber Nick, have the power and capacity to really influence change through guiding ordinary people in how and why to lose weight. He lost 7 stone and has never felt better. People may not really care about diabetes and obesity risks but they would all like to feel better, sleep better and not be breathless and exhausted.
Doctors can be less useful when compared with real people on the street with lived experience. I could never really tell a pregnant lady what it is like to have a baby because I have only read the book. Nick has ‘lived the life’ and has plenty of time to talk through his weight loss journey while cutting hair. We have 10mins and he has three times as long to establish a rapport and impart his knowledge and experience.
Tris is another Saxmundham barber who is part of a group called the Lion Barbers Collective dedicated to reducing male suicide. Doctors are again hopeless here because these patients never come to see us – but they go to their barbers regularly.
Effective public health campaigns need more than posters and TV ads about going to see your GP. We need to get key community influencers in the team if we are going to have any impact whatsoever.
Traditional physicians should brace themselves. Just as in climate change, time is running out and we need people like Nick and Tris off the bench before the whistle blows.
The barbers have the capacity to save more lives than the doctors. Not since the Middle Ages have doctors needed barbers so much!
Find out more about the community initiatives carried out by John Havard and colleagues here: https://www.saxmundhamhealth.nhs.uk/why_sax.htm
Deputy Editor’s note- see also: https://bjgplife.com/why-barbers-have-an-edge-on-gps/
Featured photo by Nathon Oski on Unsplash
