Equality impact assessment 2018

Healthwatch’s core work is to gather patient opinion on health and social care services from across the community and to use this information to recommend improvements. For Healthwatch Brighton and Hove to be effective in its work it is vital that the patient opinion it gathers is accurate and reflects all parts of the community. Healthwatch Brighton and Hove is therefore committed to ensuring that its engagement with the population of Brighton and Hove captures opinion from a range of groups and is properly representative. In this respect Healthwatch Brighton and Hove are particularly committed to gathering opinion on local health and social care services from disadvantaged groups.

As part of this commitment we annually evaluate our service reviews to assess how effectively we have engaged with the population of Brighton and Hove and its diverse communities. This process involves conducting an Equality Impact Assessment (EIA) to measure Healthwatch Brighton and Hove performance and identify actions for improvement. The EIA format includes analysis of the overall reach of patient information gathering activities as well as analysis of the effectiveness of reaching specific disadvantaged groups i.e. those defined as ‘protected characteristics groups’ by the Equality Act 2010.

This year’s EIA used data from the 2018 GP review to assess the reach of Healthwatch. The GP review was typical in the methods used by Healthwatch in a service review to reach a sample of service users. The GP review used an online survey to collect patient opinion which was distributed widely around the city via GP practices, third sector partners and through social media channels. Healthwatch also completed surveys face to face with patients through volunteer visits to GP surgeries.

The demographic reach of the GP patient survey was therefore taken as a reasonable indication of reach typically achieved by Healthwatch in its recent service reviews. For each group analysed Healthwatch Brighton and Hove compared the reach achieved to the overall population figure for Brighton and Hove. This analysis then formed the basis for a consideration of the obstacles encountered in reaching the group and possible ways of overcoming these obstacles. This discussion then leads to recommendations for actions to improve the reach of service reviews.