Regional health literacy

What is health literacy?

Health literacy is about people being able to understand health information. It’s about us making it easier for them to do this. It’s talking to patients using everyday words. It’s writing to them in a way that’s clear. This helps our patients make informed choices about their health.

Why is it important?

It is important that health information is written in a way that can be understood so that people can make informed choices about their health. The average reading age of adults in the UK is 9-11 years old. Half of adults find it hard to understand health information. So they struggle to use it to help their health and wellbeing. This creates health inequalities.

People with low health literacy:

  • Are more likely to die younger
  • Are more likely to have long-term conditions
  • Miss appointments more often
  • Find it hard to take medication correctly
  • Feel worried and angry
  • Struggle to look after their own health effectively

What can we do about it?

We can all share clearer health information. We can all speak and write in ways that make it easier for our patients to understand.

We can write in a clear way, at the average UK reading age. We can use as little medical jargon as possible. We can talk about health using everyday words.

We can check with patients if we’ve explained clearly before they go home. The regional health literacy team is here to help with this.

Our work

Our goal is to make sure that the North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care System (NENC ICS) communicates information to all people in a way that is easy for them to understand.

Our work plan for the regional health literacy team:

1 Make sure the health literacy approach involves local people and communities and health champions 
2 Create a North East and North Cumbria (NENC) health literacy team and approach that supports making the health literacy plan happen
3 Make a NENC health literacy work plan
4 Make a NENC Health Literacy Community of practice so people who are interested in health literacy can get together either in person or using technology to share ideas and support each other
5 Find out what is already happening  about health literacy across the NENC Integrated Care System (ICS)
6 Make sure the NENC ICB estates strategy has an approach that considers health literacy
7 Make a number of patient pathways health literate and use these as examples
8 Develop and make sure organisations sign up to making what they do health literate 
9 Develop and  NENC Health Literacy toolkit to help organisations be health literate
10 Explore the development of a NENC health literacy standard so people know that they will receive health information that they understand
11 Develop training for Health Literacy so people and the places they work for can be trained in how to be health literate
12 Develop a plan to measure how well the plan has made the ICS work more with health literacy in mind

Click here to see the PowerPoint video of our work plan.

We are working on patient pathways (journeys) to make them health literate. We understand every step in the pathway (journey), we review and re-write written information so that it is understandable, and we deliver training for staff involved in the pathway.

We have finished work on the following pathways:

  • North of Tyne Bowel Screening pathway
  • Alcohol – fibroscan pathway for County Durham Drug and Alcohol Recovery Service. A fibroscan is a type of scan that can measure the stiffness of your liver.
  • South Tees Children’s (Paediatric) Respiratory pathway

We are working on the following pathways

  • South Tees Maternity pathway
  • South Tees Healthy Weight and Obesity pathway
  • South Tees Physiotherapy leaflets.

We are working on a health literacy toolkit for the North East and North Cumbria ICS. There are already some helpful resources on this webpage

We are developing standards (things organisations can put in place) which shows that they are a health literate organisation

Meet the team

Find us: We are based at South Tyneside District Hospital but cover the whole of the North East and North Cumbria Region.

Contact us: stsft.nenchealthliteracy@nhs.net

Ryan Swiers

Consultant in public health/health literacy lead

Emma Davidson

Strategic manager

Alice Gray

Health equity co-ordinator

Lorna Dawson

Health literacy specialist/health literacy officer

Kia Thomas

Health information assistant editor

Alex Leigh

Health information assistant editor

Health literacy training

Our goal is to make sure that, in the North East and North Cumbria, we communicate information to all people in a way that is easy for them to understand. Come along to some free training to find out how you can make a difference.

What training is available?

Health literacy awareness

Ever wondered what health literacy is all about? Want to know why it matters and how it can help?

This session will give you a short introduction to health literacy. You will find out what health literacy is and what you can do to make it better. You’ll learn how it affects patients, carers, families and the wider community and how better health literacy can make it easier for everyone to engage in their health and wellbeing.

How to write simply

Got some health information to write and don’t know where to start? Want to know how to make your writing clearer?

This session will show you how to write clearly and simply. We’ll give you tips and tools to help make your writing as readable as possible.

When health information is clear and simple, people understand their health better. They can make more informed choices, and be more active in their health and wellbeing.

Speaking Simply

The Speaking Simply session will make you aware of the importance of good communication. You will learn about the impact that low health literacy has on people and organisations and when verbal interactions can be improved.

During this interactive session you will learn some tips and techniques for making your conversations engaging and impactful.

Available training dates

To see what training dates are available and to book a place, please visit the Boost Learning Academy website.

If you would like more information about our health literacy training or would like to discuss bespoke training for your team contact:

Stsft.nenchealthliteracy@nhs.net

 

What people are saying about our training

  • I have found your input and support invaluable – it's completely changed the way I approach patient-facing materials, comms, etc. Huge thank you to the team! 
  • I've had excellent feedback from the team about the training session – in fact, probably the most positive feedback we've ever had for an external speaker. They're highly motivated to make changes to our letters and texts to patients and get these right for patients going forward. Thank you for such an impactful session. 
  • That was phenomenal, thank you so much. It’s so important. We all need to hear this. 
  • This is such an important topic. Are they teaching it at universities? I think it needs to be in our inductions and added to curriculums! 
  • This has been one of the most useful training sessions I have attended. Thank you!
  • Really enjoyable and useful session. This learning will be of great benefit to our service users.

Health literacy Train the Trainer

We have delivered our first Train the Trainer session. If you are interested in doing Train the Trainer and want to be kept up to date about future dates, please email stsft.nenchealthliteracy@nhs.net

Please note that to do the Train the Trainer session, you will need to have done the Health Literacy Awareness and How to Write Simply sessions.

Available training

If you would like more information about our health literacy training, or would like to talk about bespoke training for your team, please email stsft.nenchealthliteracy@nhs.net

Please check the Boost Learning Academy website for available training.

Boost Learning Academy

We are also currently designing and producing local videos of our training and public feedback. 

Other courses that you may find helpful: 

Health literacy – e-learning for healthcare

Future Learn Course

Health literacy editing

We edit documents as part of our team's work on patient pathways. If you are part of the North East and North Cumbria integrated care system, we can also work with you to help make the information you produce easier to read. 

If you would like our help with a document you are writing, please email stsft.nenchealthliteracy@nhs.net

Community engagement project – We are really interested in getting feedback on the work we do. We have launched a community engagement project across the region, where we visit community groups and ask for feedback on documents we have edited. If you know of any community groups who might like to be involved please email us stsft.nenchealthliteracyediting@nhs.net  

 

 

 

Type or copy and paste your writing into this webpage. It will suggest how to make it clearer. For example, it will highlight sentences that are too long, written in the passive voice, or words people might find hard.

 

 

Click here to view the guide.

 

 

Health literacy community of practice

North East and Yorkshire Health Literacy Community of Practice

Health Innovation North East North Cumbria (HI NENC) are working with Health Innovation Yorkshire and Humber to provide a way to share learning about health literacy through a Health Literacy Community of Practice. Colleagues from outside of health and social care who may work in local libraries, education, communications and community engagement are all welcome to join this community of practice.

We welcome colleagues from outside health and social care who may work in local libraries, education, communications and community engagement groups to join this community of practice. Please help us by letting others know about this community.

To join the community of practice please contact yoyo.kwan@healthinnovationnenc.org.uk or Victoria.strassheim@healthinnovationnenc.org.uk

NHS Futures Platform

Health Innovation NENC have created an NHS Futures Platform to support the work of the Health Literacy Community of Practice. If you would like to join the NHS Futures Platform, please request an invitation via FutureNHS Collaboration Platform - FutureNHS Collaboration Platform

By joining the NHS Futures Platform, you will be automatically updated on the activity of the community.