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.

Click here to see a copy of the work plan for the regional health literacy team.

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

• We have chosen a number of patient pathways (journeys) that will be reviewed from a health literacy point of view. We will make improvements so that the pathway is health literate and check if the changes have made a positive difference. Changes will include looking at written materials and re-writing them so they are understandable and training for staff involved in the pathway. We have started work on the following pathways:
  • North of Tyne Bowel Screening Programme
  • Alcohol – Fibroscan pathway in County Durham Drug and Alcohol Services. A fibroscan is a type of scan that can measure the stiffness of your liver.
  • South Tees Maternity pathway
  • Medicines optimisation – Valproate pathway
  • Local Authority pathway – currently being identified.
• 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 working on a health literacy pledge that organisations can sign up to. We will develop standards (things organisations can put in place) which shows that they are a health literate organisation.
• We are developing a programme of health literacy training. Click on the training section for more information.