Five local Healthwatch; Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Reading, Wokingham and West Berkshire carried out a review of 21 reports they had all published since 2018, relevant to the topic ‘addressing inequalities in health and care access and outcomes’.
We all compared the main findings and the recommendations of these reports and identified two consistent themes.
Our Healthwatch call to action:
To ensure equality of access, better outcomes, and good experiences of health care and social care for all, services in the Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West1 Integrated Care System (‘BOB ICS’) area must be personalised to people’s individual needs.
Communication
Each and every service must be able to communicate effectively and respectfully with everyone who needs to use it.
Access
Each and every service must be able to adapt its offer to meet the needs of all service users, so that the service is truly accessible to them - whatever their personal characteristics, including their sex, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation; whether they live with a disability; whether they have chosen to change their gender; their maternity status; their partnership status; and their religion or belief.
Read the full report including more details on our call to action locally and nationally, below.