Addressing health inequalities and successful patient engagement are the keys to unlocking better patient care

Nottingham CityCare Reducing Inequalities Lead Carolin Tomlinson looks forward to the publication of our Health Inequalities Framework

Our mission is to make a difference every day to the health and wellbeing of the communities we serve.

A key plank of this mission is that we address health inequalities, providing care that is equally accessible to everyone in our diverse and vibrant communities.

It is important we work with patients and the wider public, talking to them about the services we provide, the services they might need in the future and how we can reduce any barriers there might be that could prevent them from accessing the care they need.

We know that the people most likely to suffer from long-term, life-limiting conditions are often those least likely to engage with health and care services until it is too late. So we must be more effective in engaging with these people and will only succeed if we fully understand equality and equal access.

It can be a complex and difficult subject to navigate but it is possible to look at if from two different but closely linked perspectives – our workforce and our patients.

Developing a diverse, inclusive and culturally skilled workforce will create an environment where everyone’s voice is heard, and everyone feels valued and respected.

This will be reflected in everything we do, including serving all our communities equally and ensuring no one is excluded.

A huge amount of work has been done to address health inequalities.

Developing a diverse, inclusive and culturally skilled workforce will create an environment where everyone’s voice is heard, and everyone feels valued and respected. This will be reflected in everything we do, including serving all our communities equally and ensuring no one is excluded.

Over the past 12 months, we have:

• Published our Cultural Awareness Guide for colleagues – to help them understand the different cultural and religious needs of certain groups
• Held a successful Race Health Inequalities Conference?– and we planning a similar event for autumn 2024 so we can continue to promote conversations across health and social care.

We will use the conference to launch a new CityCare Health Inequalities Framework, which will be used by teams across the organisation to ensure they are more connected with their communities and are better equipped to understand what is needed to provide more inclusive care.

The framework is a set of principles which promotes:

• Self-assessment
• Review of service data
• Patient engagement
• Exploration of co-production opportunities.

This will act as a toolkit for us all, improving the way we approach the development of services, basing our decisions on data and evidence available as well as input from our communities, particularly those that are often excluded.

Even small changes can have a notable impact on outcomes for patients.

This is a journey already under way for some teams, but the framework will standardise the process across the organisation.

It needs to be embedded in everything we do if we are to successfully tackle inequality in all its forms.