Improving Health Equity

Welcome to our new Improving Health Equity (IHE) page. We’ll be using this page to keep our service users, carers and partners up to date on the development of our health equity strategic plan, and the work we’re doing to deliver it.

Easy read presentation – meet the team and find out more about what we’re doing and why in this visual presentation.

As a Trust we are working together to improve the health and lives of the service users, carers and the communities we serve by making Improving Health Equity part of our core business. We are currently reviewing our approach to improving health equity and developing a new strategic plan to enable us to improve access, experience and outcomes for our populations.

We know that people who need help for their mental health, people with learning disabilities and those with neurodiversity conditions and wider protected characteristics endure inequalities which affect their health and lives.

The causes of health inequalities include things like poor quality housing, low income, and insecure employment. Things have got worse over the last 15 years. As a result, the NHS is facing rising demand for healthcare from a ‘society in distress’ according to Lord Darzi’s Independent investigation of the NHS in England, published in September 2024.

Taking this on board, we are currently drafting the first version of the Improving Health Equity Strategic Plan 2024/29.

We recognise that tackling health inequalities often requires system-level solutions, by working in partnership with local authorities, integrated care systems (ICSs) and voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector organisations.

Collaborative working needs to be embedded across the work of our Trust to enable us to deliver on this agenda.

It’s important to note that that success of our new health inequalities plan is dependent on us ALL working together.

The work we’re doing is being managed by our Head of Health Equity, Sophie Valinakis [pictured].

Sophie reports to our executive team and we are ultimately accountable to the Leeds Mental Health Population Board.

You can see a visual representation of how the work is being managed in this document.

Watch Sophie’s webinar

Sophie recently presented our health equity work to staff and partners – you can watch it again on YouTube.

 

How you can get involved

• Through the Patient Carer Race Equality Framework (PCREF) expert advisory group (and other groups or positions that emerge),
• Co-development of specific projects and pieces of work that emerge,
• Holding the organisation to account on delivery of the strategy – keeping equity a priority conversation.

If you are interested in getting involved, have any questions or would like to speak to one of our team members, please contact us via email at lmh-tr.healthequity@nhs.net.