On Thursday Irish in Britain Cuimhne Champions Coordinator Zibiah joined a consultation on the Mayor’s Health Inequalities Strategy for London at City Hall coordinated by HEAR Equality and Human Rights Network.
People from a range of organisations such as Inclusion London, The Traveller Movement, Stepping Stone4, Doctors of the World and Wheels for Wellbeing, came together to discuss Londoners’ health and wellbeing and issues of equality.
Issues raised included lack of local hospital beds and the impacts of this particularly on people with mental health support needs, impacts of welfare benefit sanctions on people with health conditions, concerns over work coaches from Job Centres being placed now in GP surgeries and venues for therapy. Discussion also included G4S Cognitive Behaviour Therapists’ job descriptions including the moving of people towards work, health charging and new regulations making ID checks in hospitals routine, confusion over people’s rights to access different types of healthcare and the reluctance of some GP surgeries to register Travellers and people of no fixed abode.
Ideas for addressing various intersectional barriers to good health and wellbeing were also discussed. Positive stories and good practice ideas were shared, for instance the achievements of the Living Well Collaborative set up to address a psychosis rate in Lambeth formerly twice as high as the average rate for England developing successful early support services in response to suggestions from “service users”.
Read the the Mayor’s draft strategy and have your say. The deadline for comments is 30th November 2017.
Those of you interested in our Cuimhne work may be particularly interested in this opportunity to share ideas for how people living with memory loss and their families and carers might be better supported to access services and remain involved with local communities.
Organisations may comment on the London.gov website and individuals may also share their views.