Staff from across East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust (ESNEFT) have been taking extra steps to tackle the inequalities which mean that some people have poorer health outcomes and a shorter life expectancy than others.
The Trust’s health inequalities team was set up two years ago to steer work to address the preventable and unfair differences in health outcomes between different groups. It focuses on responding to data which shows men in the least deprived areas of Suffolk and north east Essex live for 7.4 years longer than those in the most. For women, the gap is 5.9 years.
Becky Baldry, one of the asthma outreach nurses recruited as part of the programme, and a young patient on a home visit
A range of targeted projects have now taken place to help narrow this gap by improving health and wellbeing. They include:
- Recruiting two asthma outreach nurses to work with children in our most deprived communities.
- Making it easier to reach appointments by offering discounts on park and ride for patients at Colchester Hospital. Funding from Colchester & Ipswich Hospitals Charity has also been secured to buy a second ‘hospital hopper’ bus for Tendring Community Transport to help Tendring patients get to appointments.
- Setting up a stop smoking service for inpatients at Colchester and Ipswich hospitals. So far more than 1,800 referrals have been made, with 52% quitting.
- Making more than 50,000 offers of support through Making Every Contact Count, leading to 7,550 referrals to wellbeing services. Success stories include helping disabled patients to get blue badges, connecting lonely people to new social activities and providing extra support to help frail patients avoid falls.
- Boosting activity levels and self-esteem among young people through a weight management programme called Nourish.
- Promoting healthy eating by launching picture menus and meal-time volunteers at ESNEFT’s hospitals.
Team members on Peldon Ward with diet information
Sally Barber, associate director for health inequalities at ESNEFT, said: “Our aim is to support people to better health and help reduce the quality of life gap between those in the most and least deprived areas. This means making sure that everyone gets the same access to health and wellbeing support, regardless of where they live.
“We are proud of our progress so far and will introduce new initiatives in the next 12 months which will make an even bigger difference and help more people to live longer, healthier and happier lives.”
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