Poverty proofing

This is what we do when we poverty proof a healthcare service:

1. Training - We train all the staff so they have an awareness and understanding about poverty and why it’s hard to look after your health when you have little or no money. This helps them to be more sensitive and understanding when they care for people.
2. Consultation - We talk to as many patients as possible. We also speak to their families, carers, and other people who live in their community. This is because it is their experiences and views that help us understand what works and what needs to be changed.
3. Feedback and report – We provide the person in charge with feedback based on what people told us in the consultation. We give them a report detailing what they could change to make things more welcoming and easier for people.
4. Review – after 6-12 months we go back to the service and speak to people again to find out what difference has been made because of the Poverty Proofing©.

There are around 14.4 million people living on a low income in the UK. This impacts health. Someone on a low income is more likely to:

• Die younger
• Have fewer ‘healthy’ years
• Be unable to access a healthy lifestyle especially things like nutritious food and exercise
• Have poorer mental health
• Have smaller babies and babies with a shorter life expectancy
• Breathe poorer air
• Live in poor housing
• Suffer from avoidable illnesses caused by these inequalities

Someone who lives in an affluent part of Newcastle can expect to live to 74.8 years, that is 11 years longer than someone from a poorer part of the city who on average would live to only 63.8. This is unfair and it’s not right. The NHS has a role to play in stopping this from happening.

• We can make sure people do not have to miss work to attend appointments
• We can make sure appointments are at a time when people have childcare available
• We can cluster appointments together, saving time and money spent travelling to multiple appointments
• We can try to offer appointments closer to where people live so they don’t have to pay for expensive hospital parking
• We can make sure we have an NHS Healthcare Travel Costs Scheme that helps people with the costs of travelling to and from medical appointments
• We can make sure we advise and support people to get financial help towards prescriptions, travel, maternity care, and other healthcare costs when they are entitled
• We can think more sensitively about what we prescribe and how we talk to patients, for example not assuming they can afford certain a certain type of diet or exercise regime without talking to them about what they can manage.

These are just a few examples, if you have ideas you would like to talk about based on your own experience, please do contact a member of the team.