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.

Meet the team

Emma Davidson

Strategic manager

Yoyo Kwan

Health literacy trainer

Lorna Dawson

Health literacy specialist

Kia Thomas

Health literacy trainer

Alex Leigh

Health literacy co-ordinator

Contact us: healthliteracy@healthinnovationnenc.org.uk

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.

Health literacy: what it is and why it matters - 1 hour

How better communication can lead to better outcomes  

In our work, we share important information every day. If this information is hard for people to understand, what problems does that cause, and how can we make it better?  

In this session, you'll find out what health literacy is, why it's important, and how improving it can help people to manage their health and wellbeing. 

Health literacy: how to write simply - 1 hour

Creating clear and simple written information, without the jargon  

This session will show you the basics of writing information in a way that is clear and simple.  We’ll show you how you can communicate more clearly so that the people who read your writing can make more informed choices about health and wellbeing.  

Health literacy: speaking skills - 1 hour

How to have more effective conversations  

This session will give you tips and techniques for making your conversations with members of the public more effective. We'll look at how you can make sure that people leave those conversations with a better understanding of what you've talked about, and how this can help people look after their health and wellbeing.  

Writing for health literacy: beyond the basic - 3.5 hours (face-to-face)

This intensive half-day course builds on the Regional Health Literacy Team's basic training courses. It is aimed at people who write information for the public as part of their jobs, especially information that's related to things that affect people's health and wellbeing. 

We will go into detail about how you can write more simply and clearly. We'll include exercises to help you put the lessons into practice. 

Note: you should complete our "Health Literacy: how to write simply" course before coming to Beyond the Basics. If you aren't able to attend any of the sessions available on Boost, please email us for other options. 

Health literacy: Train the Trainer - 5 hours (face-to-face)

This Train the Trainer programme will give you the knowledge and skills to deliver health literacy training in your organisation.

Note: you need to have completed "Health literacy: what it is and why it matters" and "Health literacy: how to write simply" before taking this course.

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

If you would like to arrange ad-hoc health literacy training for your team, please complete our Training Request Form.

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.

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

Writing simply

The health literacy team is keen to help you to write simply. We want to help to make sure your written information:

  • is clear
  • is easy to understand
  • meets the needs of the public   

We will look at your written information and suggest changes to make it easier to understand. We will make some of these changes. This will give you an example of how to write simply.

Have a go at writing simply yourself. Aim for a reading age of 11 years or under. Try to avoid using complicated language and / or jargon.

There is a good reason for this. We only have funding until 31 March 2027. Before we leave, our aim is to build skills into the system. The best way for you to pick up those skills is by doing.

If you still need help from our team, complete a Health literacy editing support request form. This will let us know what help you need.

Send your written information to us by emailing: healthliteracy@healthinnovationnenc.org.uk

  • Visit BOOST Learning Academy and book on to our free health literacy training. You can join our webinars. E-learning modules are also available. Boost | Learning Academy
  • Visit our new Organisational health literacy toolkit on BOOST. There are tools and resources to help you to write simply. You will find examples of good practice too.
  • You can book time with a member of our team to get advice and coaching on writing simply.

Organisational health literacy standards and toolkit

Health literacy is about people being able to find, understand, check and use information to make choices about their health and wellbeing. A health literate organisation makes it easy for people to do this.

The North East and North Cumbria health literacy team has developed a set of organisational health literacy standards. Our organisational health literacy standards give you a framework to work towards becoming a health literate organisation. The supporting toolkit will give you the tools and resources to help you to meet the standards. They will help you put things in place to improve health literacy and meet the needs of the communities we serve.

Click here to visit the Organisational health literacy standards and toolkit

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.

Health literacy news

Health literacy June newsletter Health literacy September newsletter