Health Management and Policy Alert

UK poverty 2023: the essential guide to understanding poverty in the UK

Joseph Rowntree Foundation -
This report sets out recent trends in poverty across the UK and how levels of poverty differ between groups of people and regions. It also describes the impact it has on people’s lives, including physical and mental health.

• Report
• Joseph Rowntree Foundation - publications

Healthcare inequalities: access to NHS prescribing and exemption schemes in England

NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) - 

This report looks at health care inequalities in relation to NHS prescribing and exemption schemes in England. It considers uptake in deprived and other under-served communities, providing actionable insights with a focus on three clinical areas of prescribing - chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), hypertension, and severe mental illness (SMI).

• Report

Annual report on ethnicity differences in organ donation and transplantation

NHS Blood and Transport -
This report outlines the need for more organ donors of Black and Asian heritage, in order to help the growing number of patients waiting for life-saving transplants. It shows that in 2021-22, people of Asian heritage represented 3 per cent of deceased donors but 15 per cent of deceased donor transplants and 18 per cent of the transplant waiting list; while those of Black heritage represented 2 per cent of deceased donors but 9 per cent of deceased donor transplants and 10 per cent of the waiting list, similar to figures from the previous year. It also finds that family consent or authorisation is lower for potential donors from ethnic minority backgrounds.

• Report
• NHS Blood and Transport - news

Tackling health inequalities: delivering accessible pharmaceutical care for everyone

Royal Pharmaceutical Society -
This position paper outlines how the cost of living crisis is adding to widening health inequalities and aims to help pharmacists and pharmacy teams to take action. It describes how services that are already being provided can help reduce health inequalities such as helping patients to get the best from their medicines, to improve their health and to live well. However, the focus is on how these services are provided so they are accessible to those that need them.

• Position paper
• Royal Pharmaceutical Society - news

Digital apps and reducing ethnic health inequalities : driving progress through digital, design, and organisational transformation

NHS Race & Health Observatory -
This report reviews how information gleaned from users of online health tools is used by health providers to analyse and improve patient health. An analysis of NHS data finds that digital and apps teams, employed by the NHS, face a number of barriers and limitations preventing insight and the linking of gaps across health services, conditions, digital usage and wider ethnic health inequalities. It calls for an explicit reform in how the NHS and NHS Blood and Transplant rebuild, collect and use data to guide policy decisions, particularly around ethnicity coding and health inequalities.

• Report
• NHS Race & Health Observatory - press release

Hard times: the latest chapter in the story of local government public health spending

The King's Fund - 

How much did local government spend on public health in 2021/22, and what did they spend it on? David Buck, Senior Fellow in Public Health and Inequalities at The King's Fund, explores.

• Blog

Understanding the fundamental role of racism in ethnic inequities in Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy

Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity - 

The briefing from the Runnymede Trust and the University of Manchester’s Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity uses data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study to show that institutional and community-level factors, driven by structural and institutional racism, explain the large majority of ethnic inequities in vaccination rates.

• Briefing
• Press release

Mapping existing policy interventions to tackle ethnic heath inequalities in maternal and neonatal health in England: a systematic scoping review with stakeholder engagement

NHS Race & Health Observatory -
This report outlines a lack of a national, central focus, diversity of research and national commitment for dealing with health inequalities. It calls for the development of a central data repository to map improvements around reducing poor outcomes in maternal and neonatal healthcare for Black, Asian and ethnic minority women.

• Report
• NHS Race & Health Observatory - news

UK strategy for mpox control: 2022 to 2023

UK Health Security Agency -
This strategy outlines the UK’s four nation plan to continue reducing monkeypox (mpox) transmission over the next twelve months. It builds on the system-wide response so far this year and sets out the current position and the long-term goal to eliminate mpox transmission in the UK. The strategic goal over the next six to twelve months is focused on: reducing harm; suppressing current UK transmission; minimising UK transmission from imported cases; and contributing to a reduction in the global burden.

• Strategy
• UK Health Security Agency - publications

Talking about homes: the foundation for a decent life

Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) - 
The way we talk about homes and housing matters. This framing strategy is intended to help anyone talking and writing about homes to tell a new story. It explains how to build support for solutions which will make our housing system better.

• Framework