Health Inequalities in Some of the Most Vulnerable Neighbourhoods
Professor Chris Bentley is a Non-Executive Director at Wirral Community Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust and is also the Chair of the Quality and Safety committee. He is a prominent figure in population health and specialises in health inequalities.
Chris’ recent presentation ‘Place-based approaches to Health Inequalities in the System’s Most Vulnerable Neighbourhoods’ explores how to address some instances of health inequality in Cheshire and Merseyside.
In it’s simplest definition ‘health inequalities’ refers to the health differences across groups and populations which are beyond an individual’s control. However, according to Chris, it is important not to ‘over define’ health inequalities. The current Coronavirus pandemic has accentuated the already prominent disadvantage across certain groups in relation to health, but also housing, food, employment, income etc.
There are certain ways we can intervene:
These segments need to work together to have the greatest impact.
Cheshire and Merseyside have some of the most prolific hospital admissions in its most deprived areas in comparison to the national average. This insight includes admissions that could have been prevented through out of hospital care; this pattern is characteristic of the North West as a region.
Can these emergency admissions be prevented from out of hospital care? And why are some areas able to reduce poor outcomes more successfully than others?
Seemingly, across Cheshire and Merseyside communitiy preventions are not always successful at supporting residents to avoid crises. Chris suggests three ways this can be addressed:
Unwarranted service variation
Community-based interventions and
Service engagement with communities
What is imperative to addressing the excessive hospital admissions in the most deprived neighbourhoods and helping avoidance of crises is bridging the gap betweeen services and communities. There is already a lot of work going on in communities and the health services have often not integrated with the already established and trusted organisations in these communities. Perhaps on a place-basis what we need to do is link primary care networks into these already existing structures, thus harnessing them to bridge the gap between health care and communities.
Systems need to address this issue in order to make a percentage change. Some health systems are already making progress and connecting with communities by working with groups and organisations, however, in others there is still lots of work to be done. This is what the Cheshire and Merseyside partnership will be looking to take forward.
Please watch Chris Bentley’s full presentation. He eloquently explores the above whilst going into more statisitcal detail regarding specific areas of Cheshire and Merseyside.
Cheshire and Merseyside Health & Social Care VCFSE Leaders Group
A recent meeting of the Cheshire and Merseyside Health & Social Care VCFSE Leaders brought together a range of infrastructure and provider organisations from across the region.
The overall aim of the group is to achieve strategic influence for the Sector and genuine system change. This will be achieved by a mixture of co-ordinated activities such as further strategic meetings; consistent messaging for the Sector on the social value it delivers in communities; and exploring the development of a cohesive engagement strategy with mapped out stakeholders both in localities and the sub-region.
The main topic of discussion was the Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership Five Year Strategy, and how the VCFSE sector should influence and respond to this in a co-ordinated fashion. A series of workshops will be taking place in October across Cheshire and Merseyside to generate feedback on what role the VCFSE sector will play in the development and implementation of the strategy. Key contacts and membership organisations across the Sector will be the basis of the feedback body.
At the event, several next steps were proposed, focussing on engagement with relevant organisations and contacts within the VCFSE sector in the Cheshire and Merseyside area to develop robust feedback that will focus on the implementation of the strategy.
These next steps were as follows:
1. VSNW will pull together a ‘plan for a plan’ for VCFSE engagement, leadership and involvement that will be submitted for inclusion in the final strategy.
2. This will be signed off by a developing VCFSE leadership and partnership group that includes leaders from VS6, CVS organisations from across Cheshire and Merseyside, VCFSE ‘Place’ representatives, providers and VCSE equalities networks and organisations.
3. The plan will be circulated via the leadership group and Cheshire and Merseyside CVS.
4. The final 5 Year Strategy will be submitted to NHS England on 15th November 2019.