Reducing health inequalities in healthcare across NENC ICS Summit
The summit took place online on 6th December 2021 and began by introducing the NENC ICS Health Inequalities approach, which includes:
- The need to build back fairer after the Covid-19 Pandemic, which has exacerbated health inequality.
- The ICS health inequality approach aims to build on place-based and organisational work to develop a systematic health inequalities approach across the NENC ICS.
- 4 health inequalities workstreams in the ICS aim to drive forward the work, these include workforce, intelligence and insight, health inequality and operational group and the summit planning group.
The summit commenced with presentations from Sir Liam Donaldson and Professor Peter Kelly. Sir Liam provided an overview of the history and legacy of health inequalities within the UK. The presentation highlighted how political opinion towards health inequalities have moved away from a 'laissaz-faire' attitude since 1980. Following Sir Liam, Professor Peter Kelly introduced life expectancy rates and how this differs across the country and NENC, detailing the large disparity between affluent areas in Northumberland and deprived areas in Middlesbrough. Professor Peter Kelly additionally addressed levels of inequality experienced by those with learning disabilities and severe mental illness, stating that these groups require additional support to access services.
The summit then moved on to showcase the excellent work which is currently ongoing in NENC and what has been achieved so far. This work includes a range of initiatives that aim to tackle health inequalities and improve the health outcomes of marginalised populations, Becky Elton, Dr Samuel Dale, Julie Tucker and Dr Daniel Ahmed. The presentations further detailed initiatives to address Covid-19 misinformation. The summit finished with an inspiring presentation from Dr Bola Owolabi who raised that there needs to be a focus on the reduction of health inequalities and a strive for equitable access to health care and equality for all.
Launch of 'Making Research Matter'
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I am delighted to welcome the first ever research plan for nursing, "Making Research Matter Chief Nursing Officer for England's strategic plan for research".
This plan is for all nurses working in health and social care as well as those in academia and in the third sector.
Regardless of role or position, collectively committing to advancing nurse-led research, and the profession's contribution to wider research agendas will create opportunities to innovate, improve care and develop careers.
We are in an ideal position in the North East and North Cumbria to work collaboratively across the system, turning this strategic plan into a reality.
Dr Lesley Young- Murphy
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The Chief Nursing Officer for England's first strategic plan for research was launched online on 22nd November 2021, with over 1,000 people joining. There was an impressive line-up at the launch to include Professor Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Officer for England, and Heads of nursing research at NHS England and NHS Improvement, Professor Alison Richardson, and Professor Joanne Cooper, together with nurses currently working in research. Ruth May, Chief Nursing Officer for England, described research currently being an 'add-on' often later in people's careers. The plan's vision, which is endorsed by The Royal College of Nursing, is to “create a people-centred research environment that empowers nurses to lead, participate in, and deliver research, where research is fully embedded in practice and professional decision-making, for public benefit”. It includes all nurses in health and social care, to include public health and adult social services.
The strategy has five themes;
- Aligning nurse led research with public need
- Releasing nurses' research potential
- Building the best research systems
- Developing future nurse leaders of research
- Digitally enabled nurse-led research
This requires increased investment and involvement over the next few years. It has been divided into three phases; an initial short-term phase of discovery using listening and initiation in 2021-22, a medium term phase to build capacity in 2022-23 and long term phase of sustainability from 2024 and beyond.
The launch included a panel discussion, which included Dr Lesley Young-Murphy, Executive Director of Nursing and Chief Operating Officer at North Tyneside Clinical Commissioning Group. Discussion highlighted some key areas such as the management of continence and skin integrity, both of which are day to day issues yet currently have a limited evidence base on which to plan interventions. The need to include patients and the public in research priority setting was raised, and the need to improve the visibility of those who are already research active and enable them to work together to form a critical mass. Proposals included the idea of nurses having job plans to include research time, and embedding the importance of research into nursing training from day 1.
The full report and summary can be downloaded here
We are keen to support any nurses who are involved in or would like to get involved in research, so please get in contact, please email us at necsu.reteam@nhs.net
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