Newham Health Equity Programme

As part of our work, we are developing a toolkit of accessible resources that support the public sector to work effectively in Newham, ensuring our residents receive services tailored to their specific needs.

Business as usual means:  

• Equity is considered and promoted as part of the design of a service or pathway.
• Inequality, what it looks like in Newham, and its drivers and processes are well understood.   
• Equity, and how to achieve it, is well understood and outcomes are monitored and evaluated on an ongoing basis, including when commissioning services.
• Co-production with communities and the voluntary, community and faith sector is a standard part of commissioning and service design.

The Newham Health Equity programme will provide tools and collate best practice to support positive and sustainable change to be delivered. You can view our toolkit and learn more about health inequalities in Newham below. 

Health is a basic human right. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), equity is the absence of unfair, avoidable, or remediable differences among groups of people. 

These groups can be defined by social, economic, demographic, geographic, or other dimensions of inequality, such as sex, gender, ethnicity, disability, or sexual orientation. Health inequalities are systematic and rooted in societal structures.

To achieve health equity, we must ensure that everyone has fair access to health and care services  and has a fair chance at achieving their full health potential.

Health inequalities are unfair and avoidable differences in health among people. These differences affect how long people live and their chances of developing certain health conditions. Health inequalities also impact the care and support people can access, the quality of care they receive, and their opportunities to live a healthy life.

Health inequalities are linked to the wider determinants of health. These include social, economic, environmental, and structural factors that affect health and well-being. Discrimination, stereotyping, and prejudice based on sex, gender, age, race, ethnicity, or disability can worsen living conditions. These discriminatory practices are often embedded in institutional and system processes, leading to some groups being underserved and underrepresented in decision-making. The COVID-19 pandemic has further widened health inequalities, disproportionately affecting those already experiencing disadvantages.

The wider determinants of health -Dahlgren and Whitehead (1991)

Our work in this programmes focuses on supporting services to deliver fair access, fair experiences and fair outcomes for Newham’s residents.     

This does not mean providing identical services to all, but to offer fair access and interventions that are proportionate to need. In a universal service, everyone should benefit equally, and services may need to be tailored to meet the specific needs of different groups across Newham’s population.   

Our toolkit of resources on the Newham Health Equity programme website aims to support this work. We recognise that many of the barriers to resident’s accessing services are within our control as service providers to change, and the toolkit supports organisations to make these changes. We also want to promote the brilliant work going on in Newham, to facilitate learning across the system. 
 

• Kings Fund – What are health inequalities?
• NICE and health inequalities
• London Anti-Racism Collaboration for Health
• National Healthcare Inequalities Improvement Programme
• NIHR School for Public Health Research – Health inequalities
• The Institute of Health Equity – Tackle discrimination, racism and their outcomes
• The Institute for Health Equity – Structural Racism, Ethnicity and Health Inequalities in London
• NHS Race and Health Observatory – Ethnic Health Inequalities and the NHS