The following websites contain relevant reports, information and resources about population health and health inequalities, together with information on other aspects of health policy. 

• The Kings Fund The King's Fund | health policy, NHS leadership, events (kingsfund.org.uk)

• The Health Foundation Home | The Health Foundation

• The Health Creation Alliance Homepage - The Health Creation Alliance

• UCL Institute of Health Equity instituteofhealthequity.org/home

• Centre for Population Health Addressing Health Inequalities with Leadership Development (centreforpopulationhealth.co.uk)

Five new e-learning modules have been launched to support the implementation of Core20PLUS5, NHS England’s approach to reducing healthcare inequalities.

The e-learning sessions correspond to the 5 clinical priority areas which have been identified as having the potential for making the greatest advances in meeting the commitments outlined in the NHS Long-Term Plan and addressing greatest health inequalities, namely:

• hypertension (high blood pressure);
• early cancer diagnosis;
• chronic respiratory disease;
• maternity; and
• severe mental illness.

The modules are aimed at anyone with a responsibility or interest in reducing health inequalities – especially those working to deliver services in the ‘5’ clinical priority areas.

The modules are free and each module takes around 30 minutes to complete.  They can be accessed via the link below:

Health Inequalities: e-learning for healthcare (e-lfh.org.uk)

You will need to register for free via the link below on the e-lfh website to access the Core20PLUS5 E- learning resources.

What is trauma and why is a trauma informed approach important?

Trauma is recognised as a profound and global public health crisis. The pervasive and harmful impact of traumatic experiences on individuals, families, and communities and the inadvertent but widespread re-traumatisation of children and adults within the system has made it essential to rethink ‘how we do business’. As front-line practitioners and professionals working across the wider system, we have a responsibility to act on this.

A tendency to focus on the presenting symptoms such as violence or substance ‘abuse’ has led to huge human and economic costs to society. Now, more than ever, there is a need to tackle the impact of trauma and focus on how public systems can support people in preventing and recovering from traumatic events.

Only by working together, across systems and with communities, will we reduce the complex and interconnected social determinants and inequalities which drive trauma.

What training is available?

Trauma Informed Lancashire and the Lancashire Violence Reduction Network (LVRN) offer regular basic awareness training which explores the impact of trauma and helps to develop this knowledge into practice. The aim is to cultivate collective, cross-sector learning to support the ongoing development of trauma informed services.

The link to training for multi-agency pan Lancashire practitioners from both statutory and third sector organisations can be found at Trauma Informed Lancashire Basic Awareness - Multi Agency Partnership Staff Tickets, Multiple Dates | Eventbrite.

The links to NHS specific training can be found at Trauma Informed Lancashire - basic awareness training Tickets, Multiple Dates | Eventbrite

The Learning Outcomes of the basic awareness training are:

• to understand the transformation to becoming Trauma Informed Lancashire;
• to begin to explore how Trauma affects our body, brain and behaviour;
• to be able to recognise how trauma may present in people we work alongside;
• to consider how a Trauma Informed Approach impacts on individuals and communities; and
• to begin to think about changes we can make to our working practices, services and organisations.

Further information and resources can be found at Home - Trauma Informed Lancashire and Trauma Informed Cumbria.

You may also wish to look at the following resources:

• The Little Book of Trauma Informed by Suzanne Coyne, Superintendent Justin Srivastava and Siobhan Collingwood
• The Little Book of Adverse Childhood Experiences by Siobhan Collingwood, andy Knox, Heather Fowler, Sam Harding, Sue Irwin and Sandra Quinney
• A Shared language for Trauma-informed Practice and Adverse Childhood Experiences in Cumbria and Lancashire (including a useful Summary of Shared Language)
• A short animation about Adverse Childhood Experiences produced by Blackburn with Darwen Council in Partnership with Public Health Wales (Adverse Childhood Experiences (English) on Vimeo)
• A video on Trauma Informed Practice by the Lancashire Violence Reduction Network (https://youtu.be/BlkPcsEPbag)
• This video from NHS Education for Scotland aims to support workers to provide a trauma-informed service (Trauma Informed Cumbria via Trauma Informed Cumbria 
• This TED talk gives an overview on how Adverse Childhood Events can have an impact on someone’s health over the course of their life (https://youtu.be/95ovIJ3dsNk) (for practitioners/clinicians)

Why is it important to use the Health Equity Assessment Tool (HEAT)?

The NHS Long Term Plan and the Lancashire and South Cumbria Joint Forward Plan for 2023 onwards both highlight the vital importance of taking action to reduce the health inequalities experienced by particular communities and population groups in relation to their access and experience of services and to their health outcomes.

However, before you can address any unforeseen or unrecognised health inequalities in terms of access, experience or outcomes you need to understand and identify what these

What is HEAT?

HEAT is a tool consisting of a series of questions and prompts, which are designed to help you systematically assess health inequalities related to your work programme or service and identify what you can do to help reduce inequalities.

HEAT will also help you to consider the requirements of the Equality Act 2010 and the results can be used as the basis for a Equality and Health Inequalities Impact and Risk Assessment (EHIIRA) should you be considering commissioning a new service or making changes to a service or any policy, procedure, process or project affecting residents and/or staff.

What training is available?

A video of and slides from an online training session on HEAT can be found at:

Heath Equity Assessment Tool (HEAT) Training Session 20/10/2022 on Vimeo (Video)

heat-training-oct-22.pdf (nwpopulationhealth.nhs.uk) (Presentation)

A HEAT e-learning module can be found on e-learning for healthcare (e-lfh.org.uk) at Health Equity Assessment Tool - elearning for healthcare (e-lfh.org.uk)

You will need to register for free via the link below on the e-lfh website to access the Core20PLUS5 e-learning resources.

What advice and guidance is available?

In 2019-2020, Public Health England (PHE) reviewed and refreshed the Health Equity Assessment Tool (HEAT): Health Equity Assessment Tool (HEAT) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) which was developed to be used.

The NHSE Healthcare Public Health Team and OHID North West worked together to produce a HEAT Core20PLUS5 Toolkit. This toolkit contains an adapted version of the HEAT tool for each of the five clinical priority areas. It contains a series of prompts and signposting to relevant data sources. The toolkit is designed to support the identification of health inequities and actions to reduce inequalities.

The Academy is currently in discussion with the Office of Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) NW to develop a Train the Trainer (TtT) model for staff delivering programmes and services across the system in Lancashire and South Cumbria.

Resources

The key national and local reports on the nature and impact of health inequalities can be found listed below:

Best Practice Sessions

The videos of the Academy’s previous Best Practice Sessions can be found below: