Newham Centre for Health and Care Equity

Partners from across academia, Newham council, voluntary, community and faith sector groups have been working together and collaborating to record and evaluate evidence.

• Jason Strelitz and Anne Pordes Bowers from the Newham Adults, Health and Communities directorate spoke at Tackling Health Inequalities: the need for urgent action hosted by the Kings Fund. This blog (PDF) shares what they spoke about and what they learned.
   
• Decolonising Healthcare Innovation: A Panel Discussion: Blog sharing thoughts and reflections from a recent event Decolonising Healthcare Innovation: A Panel Discussion held in partnership with Queen Mary University London: Centre for Public Health and Policy. A video of the event can be found here
   
• Cost of Living Wellbeing Team: An overview of the Cost of Living Wellbeing Team, a team established to support residents who live alone, are over 75 and have long term health conditions that put them at particular risk from damp and cold.
   
• Social Prescribers in Community Organisations: Emerging lessons from a pilot to train and skill health advisors (social prescribers) in three grass roots community organisations to how that differs from GP based social prescribers. (poster)
   
• The Newham Social Welfare Alliance: Lessons from our sector leading approach to build capacity and knowledge for all first point of contact people across the borough (including volunteers) through regular free training sessions on topics that front line staff often come across. (poster)
   
• Piloting Health Outreach at TFL Stations: What we learned when Newham Council partnered with the Mayor of London to set up stalls at select TFL stations to improve health literacy through dissemination of simple health information at easy to access places. (poster)
   
• Supporting Asylum Seekers in Contingency Hotels: Lessons from work carried out by local partners to deliver targeted support for families seeking asylum and living in contingency hotels in the borough. (poster) 
   
• Newham Community Vitamin D Programme: What we’re learning by working hand in hand with voluntary, faith, community organisations, GP surgeries, libraries and more to distribute Vitamin D supplements in their communities. (poster) 
   
• It takes a Village: Lessons learned from the COVID-19 Champions programme 

In December 2023, Newham Council hosted the first Centre for Health Equity event. Representatives from across NHS, Council and the voluntary and community sector and wider community presented opportunities for academic collaboration: