On Thursday, 13 March 2025, the PCREF team held our Trust-wide Health Equity Strategic Planning Session, bringing together over 70 NELFT staff, community organisations, and involvement representatives. This important event marked a significant step in advancing our shared commitment to delivering equitable healthcare for all.

Throughout the session, the team focused on eight key priority areas that reflect both the lived experiences of our communities and our ambition to challenge health inequalities and improve health equity.

These included:

• Health Equity at place – strengthening access to community and physical health services
• Mental Health Care – addressing disparities experienced by Black African Caribbean men, South Asian women, and young people
• Learning Disabilities and Autism – improving service accessibility and support
• Maternity and Perinatal Care – enhancing care for mothers and babies
• End of Life Care – ensuring dignity and equity at the end of life
• Carers – increasing identification, recognition, and support.

A key outcome of the session was that each directorate was able to choose a primary focus area from the eight priorities, tailored to the specific needs of their services and the populations they support. This approach ensures that equity is embedded into local planning and delivery, allowing each team to develop targeted actions to address health inequalities and improve health equity.

The health equity strategic plan aligns closely with key national and local frameworks, including the Patient and Carer Race Equality Framework (PCREF), Core20Plus5, the Mental Health Clinical Strategy, the Anti-Racism Strategy, and Health Inequalities Strategy. This alignment ensures that local actions contribute to wider system level change, improving equity in service delivery and advance equality for staff.

The session was a valuable reminder of the power of collective action and partnership working, and the team is excited to carry this momentum forward.

The PCREF team would like to thank all colleagues who made this event possible, and to everyone who attended and contributed to such meaningful conversations.