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Showing results for tags 'Health inequalities'.
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EventThe NHS is the biggest UK employer of Black and Minority Ethnic staff. More action needs to be taken to tackle disparities and prejudice to make our NHS more equitable for staff and patients alike. Dr Anu Obaro has recently shared her experiences through a BOB impact story, in which she has reflected on how she presented the subject to her peers at a roundtable event. Join Dr Anu Obaro and guests for a one-hour webinar as they discuss how you can take action to instil anti-racism where you work. In this webinar, you will learn: How racism can be institutionalised. How you can spread and scale the learnings from Dr Obaro’s write-up on BOB. How you can gather data to demonstrate outcomes in your workplace. Register
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Reducing variation in healthcare services
Sam posted an event in Community Calendar
untilThere are many sources of variation in healthcare that can affect the flow of patients through care systems. Reducing and managing variation enables systems to become more predictable and easier to manage so allowing improvement of quality and safety. To effect successful service improvements, you need to understand the source of variation and use a range of tools to reduce and manage it. This pandemic has provoked the best of human compassion and solidarity, but those who manage our health systems still face extraordinary challenges responding to COVID-19. Looking beyond the crisis, our collective learning about the effects of the large falls in healthcare use can help inform and intensify efforts to reduce unnecessary care. The aim of this webinar is to build a culture of collaborative working across the healthcare workforce and reduce variation to prevent avoidable harm to patients, enhance healthcare equity, and improve the sustainability of health systems everywhere. Register -
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Health disparities and health equity
Patient Safety Learning posted an event in Community Calendar
Jeffrey Bomboy, senior patient safety liaison at the Patient Safety Authority, will define health disparities, discuss the impact of health disparities in this country, and discuss actions to reduce disparities in healthcare. Register -
EventuntilThis Westminster Health Forum event will examine the key policy priorities for tackling health inequalities in the national recovery from COVID-19. Includes a keynote contribution from Professor Sir Michael Marmot, Professor of Epidemiology and Director, Institute of Health Equity, University College London. Key areas for discussion will also include: research and evidence - understanding the impact of the pandemic on inequalities and key challenges it has highlighted, and the use of data and population health approaches policy priorities - including investment and cross-government coordination tackling variation - supporting vulnerable communities, addressing regional imbalances, and tackling digital exclusion initiatives at a local level - place-based working, healthy communities, and the role of health service networks, local authorities, the third sector, and community groups. Register
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EventuntilThis Westminster Health Forum policy conference will examine next steps for maternity services in England. Areas for discussion include: the Ockenden Review and the NHS Long Term Plan - progress and outstanding issues in meeting recommendations and ambitions relating to maternity care care during COVID-19 - adjustments in delivery, lessons learned, and possible directions for post-pandemic maternal care and recovery of services health inequalities - looking at priorities for how they can be address and improving support key issues for innovation, safety and regulation. Agenda Register
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EventuntilOne of the great opportunities for ICSs may be around reducing future demand for healthcare by ensuring that people remain healthy or are helped to reduce the chances of deteriorating if they do develop an illness or long-term condition. Prevention and early intervention underlie much of the NHS Long Term Plan, with a recognition that the NHS can no longer simply be an “ill health” service and instead bends to think about prevention and reducing health inequalities. Many ICSs are keen to develop this role and bring together the organisations they represent – across both the NHS and local authorities –to work collaboratively on this. But with resources and time limited, they may need to concentrate their efforts on particular areas. The second wave of covid – and the prospect of widespread vaccination starting within weeks - has added a new dimension to this with an urgent need to reduce the pressure covid places on the NHS and on normal life in general. This webinar will ask: has covid helped focus the NHS’s eyes on prevention? where are the “easy wins” for ICSs where interventions are most likely to have significant results within a reasonable timeframe? what key steps do ICSs need to take to get the maximum benefit from these? How can they build common purpose among their members to ensure these happen? how can public health be made “business as usual” for everyone working in the NHS – including those in hospitals? how can ICSs balance the preventative interventions which deliver short-term benefits with those which take longer to offer a “return on investment”? Register
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The King's Fund: What's in store for health and care in 2021
Sam posted an event in Community Calendar
untilThis free online event from the King's Fund will provide insight into the wider UK health and care landscape in 2021 and will explore how recent trends, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and future developments could affect people working in the sector, patients and the wider population. The speakers will discuss some of the big issues that we hope to see progress on in 2021, including health and care staff wellbeing, social care reform, population health and health inequalities, and legislative changes to support the integration agenda. Register -
EventuntilThe institution of medicine has always excluded women. From ancient beliefs that the womb wandered through the body causing 'humours' to 19th century Freudian hysteria, female bodies have been marked as unruly, defective, and lesser. We are still feeling the effects of these beliefs today. In 2008, a study of over 16,000 images in anatomy textbooks found that the white, heterosexual male was presented as the ‘universal model’ of a human being. We see this play out in medical research, when it isn't considered necessary to include women's experiences: approximately 70% of people who experience chronic pain are women, and yet 80% of pain study participants are men or male rats. We also see these beliefs inform clinical decisions. When experiencing pain, women are more likely to be given sedatives than painkillers, in a nod to the stereotype that women are more emotional and are therefore probably exaggerating the nature of their pain. This phenomenon is known as the gender pain gap, which describes the disparities in medical care that men and women receive purely due to their gender. But while awareness has risen over the last few years, how close are we to really closing the gender pain gap? Join The Femedic and Hysterical Women in discussion with Dr Omon Imohi, Dr Hannah Short, and research charity Wellbeing of Women as we consider how far medicine has come and how far we still have to go. Register
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Content ArticleMost doctors enter their training with a desire to help people. When a patient asks us for assistance, and what is requested is within our power, we generally say yes. If what they want is not safe or evidence based—another home detox from alcohol, or a drug that is blacklisted in our formulary—we have good reasons for declining. When the main reason for saying no is that we are just too busy, however, it is far harder. Our ability to say no raises questions of equity and patient safety; as there are not enough GPs to cope with patients’ demands, we need to be careful how we spend our time. If we want to continue to look after our patients safely, we must also start learning to say no in other spheres, politely pushing back against the transfer of work from hospitals to general practice.
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In this blog, student midwife Sophie Dorman describes some of the issues that have led to a chronic shortage of midwives, including a culture of fear, poor pay and conditions and a lack of basic facilities for maternity staff. She highlights the impact this is having on the safety of maternity services and argues that valuing and looking after midwives will make pregnancy and childbirth safer and better for everyone. -
Content ArticleThe government recently appointed Dame Lesley Regan, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at Imperial College London, as the first women’s health ambassador for England. The new role has been created to help close the gender health gap. Shakila Thangaratinam, Professor of Maternal and Perinatal health, University of Birmingham, reflects on what Dame Regan should focus on in this blog for The Conversation.
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Content ArticleCancer screening involves testing for early signs of cancer in people without symptoms. It can help spot cancers at an early stage, when treatment is more likely to be successful, or in some cases prevent cancer from developing the first place. The screening test for bowel cancer is the faecal immunochemical test, or FIT, that looks for tiny traces of blood in your poo. These tests are sent to everyone in the eligible population every two years. In this blog Jacob Smith from Cancer Research UK looks at the importance of increasing bowel cancer screening in socioeconomically deprived communities, where there is a higher incidence of bowel cancer and death from bowel cancer. This is partly due to lower levels of participation in screening. The blog highlights the results of a recent study carried out by the University of Sheffield to determine which interventions may be successful in reducing health inequalities related to bowel cancer screening. Modelling found that re-inviting non-participants to take part in screening each year was a highly effective intervention, and it is estimated that this approach would prevent over 11,000 bowel cancer deaths over the lifetime of the current English population aged 50-74.
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Content ArticleIn this briefing paper for the Social Market Foundation, Lord Norman Warner sets out a radical change programme that could reverse the decline in NHS services. It examines long-term issues that have been exacerbated by the impact of Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic—the care backlog, workforce issues and loss of public confidence.
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Content ArticleThe Indian Liver Patient Dataset (ILPD) is used extensively to create algorithms that predict liver disease. Given the existing research describing demographic inequities in liver disease diagnosis and management, these algorithms require scrutiny for potential biases. Isabel Straw and Honghan Wu address this overlooked issue by investigating ILPD models for sex bias. They demonstrated a sex disparity that exists in published ILPD classifiers. In practice, the higher false negative rate for females would manifest as increased rates of missed diagnosis for female patients and a consequent lack of appropriate care. Our study demonstrates that evaluating biases in the initial stages of machine learning can provide insights into inequalities in current clinical practice, reveal pathophysiological differences between the male and females, and can mitigate the digitisation of inequalities into algorithmic systems. An awareness of the potential biases of these systems is essential in preventing the digital exacerbation of healthcare inequalities.
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Surviving in Scrubs campaign
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Staff safety
Sexism, sexual harassment, and sexual assault are commonplace in the healthcare workforce. Too many healthcare staff have witnessed or been subject to it… the female med student asked to stay late lone working with a senior male doctor, being looked over for opportunities at work, unwelcome touching at conferences, comments on your looks… the list goes on. A 2021 survey from the BMA reported 91% of women doctors had experienced sexism in the last 2 years and 47% felt they had been treated less favourably due to their gender. Over half of the women (56%) said that they had received unwanted verbal comments relating to their gender and 31% said that they had experienced unwanted physical conduct. Despite these statistics these issues remain endemic in healthcare. The Surviving in Scrubs campaign, created by Dr Becky Cox and Dr Chelcie Jewitt, aims to tackle this problem, giving a voice to women and non-binary survivors in healthcare to raise awareness and end sexism, sexual harassment, and sexual assault in healthcare. You can share your story through the Submit Your Story page anonymously and the story will be published on the Your Stories page. This will create a narrative of shared experiences that cannot be ignored. -
Content ArticleThis is the transcript of a Westminster Hall debate in the House of Commons on waiting lists for gynaecological services.
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UK Covid-19 Inquiry Terms of Reference (28 June 2022)
Patient-Safety-Learning posted an article in Covid-19 Inquiry
This document outlines the final terms of reference for the Public Inquiry into the government's response to the Covid-19 pandemic, chaired by Baroness Heather Hallett. The Inquiry will examine, consider and report on preparations and the response to the pandemic in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Baroness Hallett has also recorded a video statement to the public about the Inquiry, which includes a British Sign Language translation. -
Content ArticlePretty soon there won’t be a trust without an associate director or even board level director fully dedicated to all things equality, diversity and inclusion; relatively new senior roles that must have a purpose, job description and performance indicators. They will spend energy on yet more strategies, start from the top and hope something trickles down. Or they could start where the work is done, and build the tools to make equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) everyone’s responsibility. Trusts are full of people passionate about EDI. So many roles, so many champions. They meet, share stories, and champion the importance of EDI. All this busyness typically outside a governed frame without the necessary reporting, investigating, actions, outcomes, learning, and measurable improvement. To normalise EDI and make it everyone’s responsibility will involve enabling reporting of EDI incidents, investigating it, taking action, and learning from it, writes Dr Nadeem Moghal in an article for HSJ.
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Content ArticleThe NHS in England is about to be reorganised. In April 2022, government passed the Health and Care Act 2022 – the biggest legislative overhaul of the NHS in a decade. The centrepiece of the legislation are integrated care systems (ICSs) – area-based agencies responsible for planning local services to improve health and reduce inequalities. From July 2022, England will be formally divided into 42 ICSs, covering populations of around 500,000 to 3 million people. ICSs have existed informally since 2016, but – until now – lacked formal powers. ICSs face a mammoth task. Staffing shortages in the NHS are chronic, record numbers of people are waiting for routine hospital treatment, and health inequalities in England are wide and growing. But these challenges are not evenly distributed between ICSs – and some systems are better equipped to deal with them than others. Policymakers have allowed some flexibility in how local systems have been developed and organised, which means they vary widely in size, structure, and other characteristics. In this long read, The Health Foundation analyses publicly available data on some of the characteristics of ICSs and context in each area – including the organisational and policy context, health challenges, and capacity within the health care system to address them. It compares areas and discusses implications for policy.
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Content ArticleThe health and social care system’s long-term sustainability depends on effective digital transformation. This document outlines the government's plans to reform and develop the use of digital technologies in health and social care in order to deliver a system that will be faster, more effective and more personalised. The plan pulls together the four goals of reform for the health and care system identified by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care: prevent people’s health and social care needs from escalating personalise health and social care and reduce health disparities improve the experience and impact of people providing services transform performance
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Content ArticleThis retrospective cohort study in JAMA Internal Medicine aimed to determine whether there are systematic racial and ethnic biases in pulse oximetry among patients with Covid-19, and whether these biases result in patients not being accurately recognised as candidates for oxygen threshold–specific therapy. The authors found that patients from racial and ethnic minority groups with Covid-19 are often subject to overestimation of arterial oxygen saturation levels. This contributes to them not being recognised, or a delay in them being recognised, as eligible to receive Covid-19 therapies.
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Content ArticleThis report by researchers at the University of Birmingham is the first granular analysis of the known and hidden waiting lists for elective procedures in England. There has been previous analysis of the NHS waiting list, but it has been based on the overall waiting list and has included patients waiting for all types of consultant-led care, including outpatient clinic visits and non-surgical treatments. The authors of this report have used procedure-level data to produce estimates for the need for elective procedures.
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Content ArticleThis white paper from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) describes a framework to guide health care organisations in their efforts to provide safe, equitable, person-centred telemedicine. The framework includes six elements to consider: access, privacy, diagnostic accuracy, communication, psychological and emotional safety, and human factors and system design.
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Content ArticleFollowing the UK's exit from the European Union, the government aims to improve how medical devices and diagnostic devices are regulated through a new framework. The MHRA held a consultation on the future regulation of medical devices in the UK in autumn 2021 and this report outlines the government's response to the consultation. The consultation received 891 responses and aimed to collect views on developing a future legislation for medical devices which delivers: improved patient and public safety greater transparency of regulatory decision making and medical device information close alignment with international best practice, and more flexible, responsive and proportionate regulation of medical devices.
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Content ArticleThe first COVID-19 vaccine outside a clinical trial setting was administered on 8 December 2020. To ensure global vaccine equity, vaccine targets were set by the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) Facility and WHO. However, due to vaccine shortfalls, these targets were not achieved by the end of 2021. Watson et al. aimed to quantify the global impact of the first year of COVID-19 vaccination programmes. The study found that COVID-19 vaccination has substantially altered the course of the pandemic, saving tens of millions of lives globally. However, inadequate access to vaccines in low-income countries has limited the impact in these settings, reinforcing the need for global vaccine equity and coverage.
