Haref Ally - West Road Medical Centre - wins funding for 'No Inequalities' project

Connected Voice Haref and West Road Medical Practice are working in collaboration to develop a new way of checking people’s long term health condition in their annual review. The project has won funding from the Queens Nursing Institute following a successful bid from Practice Nurse Rebecca Shearer. Since joining the team at West Road Medical Centre, Rebecca has become passionate about reducing health inequalities amongst her patients. 

West Road Medical Centre has over 10,000 registered patients, with more than 2,000 not having English as their first language. A third of the practice’s registered patients are also living with a long term health condition and are included in an annual review system. After attending for their annual review, the patients receive their results letter, in English.

Rebecca Shearer presented a creative bid for funding her 'No Inequalities' project in which she gave the assessment panel of English speakers a mock results letter written in Romanian. She then asked if they were able to understand their results, and whether they were able to feel engaged in their personalised care and could they see their health outcomes improving after seeing their results. Of course, the answer was 'no'. 

Rebecca explained:

The idea behind the project is simple. The aim is to reduce inequalities in primary care by overcoming language and literacy barriers. We need to provide patients with their results letter in a visual format, a universal language. Only then will we empower the patient and allow them the opportunity to engage in their own care and together improve their health outcomes.

NHS England and Improvement and West Road Medical practice are collaborating with Haref and Year of Care Partnerships to gather feedback from ethnically minoritised communities in Newcastle's West End to develop a new and more accessible results letter. Patients in West Road Medical Centre's annual review system can expect to see the newly designed letter later this year.

Word of the project has already spread and organisations from across the country are keen to hear more. Dr Amanda Young from The Queen's Nursing Institute will be visiting the practice in July to see how the project is moving forward.