Ten ‘test and learn’ projects to test how active collaboration can reduce health inequalities
Purpose
Many local people were not coming forward to local GP practices for healthcare or Health Checks, and VCSEs had reportedly struggled to engage with primary care to help facilitate better access. This portfolio of projects ran for six months across localities in Greater Manchester to test ways in which GP practices and VSCEs could work together to reduce health inequalities in their local populations. The projects made use of the CORE20PLUS5 framework to identify population cohorts to work with.
Learning
While it was agreed that a six-month period was just ‘scratching the surface,’ some valuable common learnings emerged, including:
- People who were not accessing primary care services found it easier to discuss health in a community rather than health setting
- For local people their ‘whole story’ was about debt, housing, food, employment, as well as health
- Practice staff had greater success in enrolling people by spending time in hyperlocal settings, such as community café, and working out of uniform
- Relationships took time to build, e.g. often the real issue would come out in the third conversation
- Collaboration and preventive care needs strong leaders to push it
- People liked the NHS coming out to them, and the primary care staff involved want to keep the work going
- Overall, collaborative focus on preventive care required substantial and sustained investment of time and effort from all parties.