Implementation plan – responding to Public Health England’s (PHE) recommendations

We have developed an implementation plan using findings from the Turning the Tide Strategy and the PHE report, Beyond the data: Understanding the impact of COVID-19 on BAME groups. The report outlines seven recommendations for action to deal with the disproportionate impact of the disease and to save lives.

The report was drawn up from a range of requests for action from stakeholders and points to the areas where commitment, focus, and delivery at scale could make a significant difference in improving the lives and experiences of BAME communities.

The South East region is committed to responding to these seven recommendations which are incorporated into our Implementation Plan.

Summary

We have set out a summary of key actions in response to the seven PHE recommendations:

1. The plan mandates comprehensive and quality ethnicity data collection and recording as part of routine NHS and social care data collection systems, including the mandatory collection of ethnicity data at death certification and ensuring that data is readily available to local health and care partners to inform actions to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on BAME communities.
2. Support community participatory research, in which researchers and community stakeholders engage as equal partners in all steps of the research process, to understand the social, cultural, structural, economic, religious, and commercial determinants of COVID-19 in BAME communities, and to develop readily implementable and scalable programmes to reduce risk and improve health outcomes.
3. Improve access, experiences and outcomes of NHS, local government and integrated care systems commissioned services by BAME communities including: regular equity audits; use of health impact assessments; integration of equality into quality systems; good representation of black and minority ethnic communities among staff at all levels; sustained workforce development and employment practices; trust-building dialogue with service users.
4. Accelerate the development of culturally competent occupational risk assessment tools that can be employed in a variety of occupational settings and used to reduce the risk of employee’s exposure to and acquisition of COVID-19, especially for key workers working with a large cross section of the general public or in contact with those infected with COVID-19.
5. Fund, develop and implement culturally competent COVID-19 education and prevention campaigns, working in partnership with local BAME and faith communities to reinforce individual and household risk reduction strategies; rebuild trust with and uptake of routine clinical services; reinforce messages on early identification, testing and diagnosis; and prepare communities to take full advantage of interventions including contact tracing, antibody testing and ultimately vaccine availability.
6. Accelerate efforts to target culturally competent health promotion and disease prevention programmes for non-communicable diseases promoting healthy weight, physical activity, smoking cessation, mental wellbeing and effective management of chronic conditions including diabetes, hypertension and asthma.
7. Ensure that COVID-19 recovery strategies actively reduce inequalities caused by the wider determinants of health to create long term sustainable change. Fully funded, sustained and meaningful approaches to tackling ethnic inequalities must be prioritised.