Community Powered Edmonton: Using community collaboration to improve services and reduce inequalities

This report presents the findings of a series of engagement activities about health inequalities with members of the public, ran by New Local in collaboration with Edmonton Community Partnership and Healthwatch Enfield. Local residents attended the engagement events alongside representatives from Enfield Council, the NHS, and voluntary and community sector organisations. Throughout the programme, three areas became increasingly apparent with regards to addressing health inequalities:

• The importance of wider determinants in identifying and causing health inequalities, like poverty, culture, and access to education.
• Gaps in knowledge and barriers to gaining knowledge, especially around what services are available to individuals and communities.
• Blocks to service access, including physical barriers like geography, digital exclusion and language barriers, plus issues which may take more thorough and collaborative work to overcome, such as trust and cultural differences.