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Last updated: 11 March 2010
11 March 2010
A new short study, Inclusion Health, outlines how improvements in health care for the most excluded groups in society can be accelerated to ensure high quality services are available to all.
The joint study by the Department for Health and the Social Exclusion Task Force in the Cabinet Office, published today, examined how well the primary health care needs of vulnerable groups are being met. It concluded that considerable progress has been made, but also highlighted that socially excluded groups often have complex needs and require a sophisticated and flexible response from service providers. Inclusion Health sets out to address this.
In order to bring about further improvements, the Government will support the delivery of the Inclusion Health agenda by establishing a National Inclusion Health Board. This will be chaired by a Professor Steve Field, Chairman of the Royal College of GPs, senior health professional and will be responsible for driving the action plan forward. Some of the key actions include:
• Establishing a Chair in Inclusion Health providing professional and academic leadership within the sector.
• Embedding inclusion health in undergraduate training for all nurses, doctors and dentists.
• Publishing new Inclusion Health commissioning guidance, which will set out how the needs of socially excluded groups can be better assessed and met;
• Describing and promoting effective models of prevention and promotion for socially excluded groups.
• Enhance existing processes and incentives to encourage service innovations and improvements for socially excluded groups.
Inclusion Health is based on evidence from the research carried out by the Department for Health and the Social Exclusion Task Force and work to understand the experiences, skills, views and opinions of frontline service providers, commissions, practitioners, service leaders, local managers and users themselves.
This study complements the work of the broader programme of work on Health Inequalities and the Marmot Review and work to address equalities issues in health care.
Download the evidence pack that underpins Inclusion Health will be published on the Department of Health and Cabinet Office websites
Inclusion Health Commissioning Guidance, produced by the Department of Health and the NHS in conjunction with the Social Exclusion Task Force will be available from 21 March 2010