Health Management and Policy Alert

Addressing vaccine hesitancy in different ethnic communities

NHS Confederation - 

Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership used insight gained from a four-stage programme to understand the impact that COVID 19 was having on ethnic minority communities, and work with the different communities to understand the causes of the vaccine hesitancy. This programme of work, which entailed partnership working between multiple agencies as well as with the various communities, led to a significant increase in vaccine uptake in just four months.

• Case study

An independent appraisal of the NHS Workforce Race Equality Standard

Civitas - 

The NHS seeks to monitor and control diversity and equality through a programme known as the Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) – it is based on a series of statistical indicators pertaining to outcomes between white and non-white minority groups. However this paper argues that closer inspection of those indicators reveals ‘they do not withstand methodological scrutiny’.

• Paper
• Press release

Towards true universal care: reforming the NHS charging system

Institute for Public Policy Research - 

The system of charging migrants for healthcare in England has become increasingly stringent in recent years. Since the introduction of the new rules, there is a growing body of evidence highlighting their adverse impacts. Through interviews with people with direct experience of NHS charging, healthcare workers and policy professionals, this study found further evidence of systemic problems with the current charging system. Other countries in Europe operate fairer systems to provide healthcare for residents without immigration status. Drawing on these examples alternatives to the current system were tested out with the expert interviewees. Based on these interviews, a shortlist was drawn up of five alternatives to the current charging system.

• Report
• More detail

Left behind: a decade of intergenerational unfairness

Intergenerational Foundation - 

This report used 31 indicators to investigate how the position of young people has changed in the labour market, housing, higher education, government expenditure, wealth and expenditure, physical and mental health, political representation and the environment. In all policy areas, except for the environment, the position of younger people has either declined or stagnated over the past ten years.

• Report
• Press release

Equality, diversity and inclusion training: a good practice guide

NHS Employers - 
This guidance includes information on: who should receive the training; training objectives; training content outline; a definition of health inequalities; and legislative requirements and policies. It also covers equality standards in the NHS; understanding bias and strategies for embedding equality, diversity and inclusion. The guide is aimed at equality, diversity and inclusion leads, HR and learning and development professionals, and trade union representatives.

• Guidance
• NHS Employers - publications

On the level: six principles to underpin the levelling up white paper

Local Government Information Unit (LGIU) - 

The LGIU has over the last two years published a series of briefings and research papers to try and clarify what levelling up will entail, whether it is a coherent policy and how local government can respond. This paper brings together this work to look at the opportunities levelling up offers (including addressing health inequalities) and the risks it poses.

• Paper
• Press release

Equality in Public Health England: how we met the Public Sector Equality Duty in 2020

Public Health England (PHE) -
The equality duty is supported by two specific duties which require public bodies such as PHE to: publish information to show their compliance with the equality duty; and set and publish equality objectives at least every four years. These reports set out how PHE responded to meeting these two specific duties.

• Report
• Public Health England - publications

Attitudes to inequalities

Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) - 

This report, published as part of the IFS Deaton Review of Inequalities, looks not just at economic inequality, but at attitudes towards other types of inequalities that also have an important bearing on people’s lives, including in health and education, and inequalities between genders, ethnic or racial groups, generations and people living in different areas.

• Report
• More detail

What is wrong with inequality?

Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) - 

This report, published as part of the IFS Deaton Review of Inequalities, lays out the reasons people have for objecting to certain differences between what individuals have and in how they relate to one another.

• Report
• More detail
• Press release

Responding to the needs of a diverse workforce and community during Covid-19

NHS Employers - 

Solent NHS Trust is a community and mental health trust that covers Portsmouth, Southampton and parts of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. At the outbreak of Covid-19, a comprehensive organisational diversity and inclusion response was developed, focussing on five workstreams. This case study describes in detail the five workstreams, accomplishments and lessons learnt for the future.

• Case study