Tackling health inequalities
The Marmot Review found that, in England, people who are dying prematurely as a result of health inequalities would, each year, otherwise have enjoyed a total of between 1.3 and 2.5 million extra years of life. Not only do people in the poorest neighbourhoods die sooner, they live more of their lives with disability. These findings unequivocally illustrate that reducing health inequalities is an urgent matters that disability organisations are well positioned to drive the required change.VODG’s renewed focus on tackling health inequalities was initiated by the chief executives’ network in March 2017. Since then we have used our professional networks to share insight and good practice developments as well as convening a dedicated event for service managers/registered managers and organisational leads responsible for addressing health inequalities. Read the discussion paper from this event here. VODG is now planning the second national event on tackling health inequalities - further details are available here.Resources for all providers NHS choices provides advice and resources to support people to live healthy lives, including tips on diet, fitness, mood, smoking and alcohol and information about a wide range of health conditions.VODG’s social value toolkit provides resources and case studies to enable providers to adopt a planned approach to tackling health inequalities by adding social value in the communities they serve.CQC’s equality and human rights good practice resource explores the factors which make providers successful champions of equality and human rights.Resources for learning disability providers
People with learning disabilities have significantly worse health than the general population. The following resources and initiatives are for providers supporting this group of people:
The health charter for learning disability providers is hosted by VODG and offers guidance on improving people’s quality of life through improving their health and wellbeing.STOMP (Stopping the Over-Medication of People with a learning disability, autism or both), also hosted by VODG, is a health campaign to stop the over-use of psychotropic medication to manage people’s behaviour.LeDeR (Learning Disabilities Mortality Review Programme) looks at how service providers can learn from the deaths of people with learning disabilities. Use this link to notify the project of the death of a person you support.