Luton Health Equity Toolkit
We are delighted to present this Health Equity Town ‘Ways of Working Toolkit – Supporting a common way of working’. This toolkit will facilitate Luton’s Health Equity System to work more collaboratively with one another driving action that supports the Luton 2040 vision of being a healthy, fair and sustainable town where everyone can thrive, and no-one has to live in poverty.
Reducing health inequalities is at the heart of what we do in making Luton a town for people to prosper and thrive, and central to our journey to become a Marmot town – a town that prioritises health equity. Luton has a unique and complex population demographic which relate to many of the differences within the town. We have a diverse and vibrant population with many languages spoken in different ethnicities. We have a complex pattern of population mobility and we have areas in Farley, South and Northwell wards that are in the 10% most deprived in England.
The recent pandemic had a great impact on the population of Luton, and was a difficult time for our community. During this time, health inequalities that were already in existence worsened. Although the pandemic is now behind us, some clear challenges remain, including the cost of living crisis nationally.
These complex factors lead to health inequalities – differences in life expectancy, in prevalence of risk factors such as obesity and smoking, and prevalence of conditions such as hypertension and cancer. These inequalities are evident across the borough between areas and communities.
We now have the opportunity to present our approach to tackling inequalities within Luton. The toolkit helps identify how we can collectively work together to identify the opportunities to improve health and wellbeing outcomes and reduce the impact of inequality through out work.
East London Foundation Trust
The East London Foundation Trust are the first Marmot Trust in the UK and are leading the way we work to improve quality and tackle health inequalities within our services and systems. Quality improvement (QI) is about giving people closest to the issues impacting care the skills and resources they need to solve complex problems. Quality improvement is about applying a systematic approach to working through a complex issue, involving the people closest to the issue in understanding it deeply, developing creative ideas and testing these, using data to learn and adapt.
Talking About The Building Blocks Of Health
The building blocks of health and well-being are the influencing factors commonly known as the wider determinants of health. Examples of the building blocks of health are good quality homes, access to good education, stable and good employment, social connections and safe neighbourhoods, clean air and access to good quality health services and care.
These influencing factors impact our health and ultimately how long we will live.
As a Health Equity Town, one of the common ways of working that we would like partners and anchor organisations to learn to communicate about the building blocks of health so that residents and our partners have a clearer idea of what is needed to ultimately improve health and wellbeing and reduce health inequity.
See the toolkit used by The Health Foundation to support how we talk about health in Luton. We have supported people to become Building Blocks of Health Champions. These are colleagues and individuals who have undertaken bespoke training by the Health Foundation to support more accessible ways of talking about the social determinants of health.
