The Vercelli VIGOUR Pilot held an event to share its experience with local stakeholders

The VIGOUR Pilot in Vercelli has come to an end. This end is just the beginning of a future process that the VIGOUR project phases have stimulated since its start. On the 6th of July, the Vercelli VIGOUR Pilot Team hosted a local event to share their achievements with the regional health management, as well as stakeholders at the local and national levels.
From the preliminary phases of VIGOUR to practice and scale-up: the initial ambition statement of Vercelli has evolved into an integrated approach that benefits both professionals, social-health organisations and the ultimate beneficiaries – the target population. Theoretical schemes have been filled with real-life work put in place by social and health care professionals. Physical, concrete structures, such as the Santhià Community Health Centre, the Psychology  Service, the Epidemiology Service and the local health district have strengthened an integrated multi-professional network thanks to the project. Side by side with the Management Unit, they applied the VIGOUR schema to create and implement new work approaches.
During the project, a multi-professional team engaged with older community members over the age of 65, who are at risk of loneliness and mainly affected by chronic conditions. First, Family and Community Nurses, together with psychologists, GPs and social workers developed a common toolbox aimed at identifying social, psychological and health conditions in the target population (i.e. official assessment scales). Once the needs were identified, professionals participating in the Pilot began to carry out prevention activities.
A huge advantage of the Pilot has been the direct contact with the target population. As a result of the project, community-dwelling older adults have received necessary support to focus on their main health issues and to delay or avoid institutionalization as much as possible.