A Sutton firm has introduced a table tennis court to help boost the health and wellbeing of staff.

Paragon Customer Communi-cations, Sutton, has been working with Nottinghamshire County Council and Ashfield District Council on promoting a range of health and wellbeing initiatives.

The table tennis court was introduced to give staff the chance to relax and undertake exercise during their breaks.

It is well used each week by office staff, from 9am to 5pm, as well as by shift workers working through the night in the factory.

Other health and wellbeing ideas introduced at the PCC Nottingham site include:
Fruit Wednesday — More than 100 items of fruit are put on offer in the staff canteen free of charge.
A wellbeing room — Staff can relax there and find out health and wellbeing information from charities and voluntary organisations.
Scales, a tape measure and blood pressure monitor — For staff to check their BMI and blood pressure.

Physical activity is a priority of the county council’s Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2018-2022 and this initiative provides opportunities for people to be active at work.

Coun John Doddy, chairman of the Nottinghamshire Health and Wellbeing Board at the county council, said: “There is a huge amount of work already under way across Nottinghamshire to improve health and wellbeing, which supports the delivery of our shared vision.

“The ideas introduced by Paragon are great examples of the sorts of interesting health and wellbeing ideas that other companies and organisations could consider to benefit their staff.”

Amanda Best, executive assistant at PCC Nottingham, said: “We recently took part in a challenge with another organisation nearby to set staff the task of taking 10,000 steps a day to improve their health.

“We take health and wellbeing very seriously as it helps to reduce sickness, boost staff happiness and improve productivity and all of the initiatives have worked.”

The overall council strategy has numerous aims, including focusing on prevention — helping people and communities to support each other, preventing problems from arising and using the council’s influence to make sure that improving health and wellbeing is everyone’s responsibility.

There are four ambitions within the strategy — to give everyone a good start in life, to have healthy and sustainable places, to enable healthier decision making, and to work together to improve health and care services.