What is health equity?

Equity in healthcare is described as “Absence of unfair, avoidable or remediable differences among groups of people, whether those groups are defined socially, economically, demographically, or geographically or by other dimensions of inequality.”

(World Health Organisation)

Equity differs from equality, which sees everyone treated the same irrespective of their circumstances. You can see this difference in the illustration below.

Supporting teams to pursue equity

In response to the trust strategy to improve quality of life for all we serve, the trust has launched a Quality Improvement (QI) programme to support teams to pursue equity.

Phase one of the programme began in April 2022 and was designed in partnership with the colleagues from public health, people participation, the trust’s networks, and the QI department.

The programme brought together several teams from across the trust, to support them to use QI to improve equity in areas of the trust they served. Topics that were tackled included:

Using QI in collaboration with service users, several teams had some impressive results which you can see below. If you click on boxes for each project, you will be able to read stories of their work.

You can hear more about the experiences of two people who were part of projects by watching the videos below. First hear from Cornelia, Matron, who led the racism project on East India Ward. Secondly you can hear from Shanaz, an expert by experience, who co-led the work in the Tower Hamlets Early Intervention service.

Phase two of the programme runs from September 2023 to October 2024 and will build on the success of phase one to support teams to use QI to tackle inequity. Teams will:

• Receive support from a QI coach to effectively apply the method to the issue they are tackling.
• Be part of a community of learners brought together every 6-8 weeks to share their ideas and hear from guest speakers.
• Have access to colleagues in the people participation, informatics and public health teams to support their work.
• Be supported to tell the story of their work and raise its profile.

Based on the learning from phase one, we will be helping teams focus on the things below

We look forward to further supporting teams to make improvements for those they serve and sharing the stories.

Conducting Health Equity Data Analysis

Achieving Equity Through Quality Improvement

The Quintuple Aim for Health Care Improvement

Using rising tides to lift all boats Equity-focused quality improvement as a tool to reduce neonatal health disparities

An Equity Agenda for the Field of Health Care Quality Improvement

Leveraging Quality Improvement to Achieve Equity in Health Care

All Quality Improvement Is Health Equity Work Designing Improvement to Reduce Disparities

Tackling the wider social determinants of health and health inequalities evidence from systematic reviews

IHI Achieving Health Equity White Paper