Grassroots Beginnings
“…truly embedded in the local community..”
Jane Jones, founder and co-ordinator of PCHP 1984-1994
PCHP is Scotland’s oldest community health project. It was set up in 1984 following a period of research and campaigning by a group of local community activists. These women’s insights, research and campaigning is documented in the book Private Troubles and Public Issues, A Community Development Approach to Health (ISBN 0 947919 40 6) written by Jane Jones and a foreword to Malcolm Chisholm, then an MP and now on our Board of Directors.
Pilton Health Project, as we were originally called, was amongst the first wave of community health initiatives which emerged in the UK as a response to, and part of, the social and political changes. The establishment of the project was a truly revolutionary at the time.
As the founder Jane Jones states, “The roots of the PCHP lie in the women’s health movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. This movement challenged the nature and priorities of the health service and re-framed the meaning of health to include social and political dimensions.”
As a Workers Educational Association (WEA) tutor, Jane formed a strong group of community activists aiming to address health and well-being issues using a community development framework. Jane and another activist named Roberta Blaikie organised the Scottish Women’s Health Fair in 1983, and presented the views of women from areas of Edinburgh with high levels of health inequalities to a committee at the Scottish Health Education group. The chair of this committee, a doctor named Sir John Crofton, was a prime mover behind the setting up of the project at a a time when community development and health was new in Scotland. He helped the women to fund and establish a small local health project within a doctor’s surgery the following year.
The project grew from these grassroots beginnings into the influential and multidimensional project it is today. Jane explained that “the amount of time and commitment, and good humour from people in Pilton cannot be overestimated – they supported the work, created local services and sustained it for all these years. Individuals spoke at national conferences, were invited to seminars and meetings throughout the UK, helped other groups to form, and produced various publications and videos.
“In this way, PCHP is a project that is truly embedded in the local community, and service users, volunteers and staff are all integral to its continued success”.
With a well-established and respected history of work in North Edinburgh, our support continues to provide an essential lifeline for many local families who continue to be affected by long term health inequalities, the avoidable differences in people’s health. Health inequalities represent thousands of unnecessary deaths every year in Scotland and for men in the most deprived areas – nearly 25 fewer years are spent in ‘good health’ than men in the least deprived areas. For women this is 22 years. See more at healthscotland.scot.
