13 May 2021 – Mental Health Network – governance during the COVID-19 pandemic webinar

Habib Naqvi and Sam Rodger from the NHS Race and Health Observatory were the special guests at this week’s webinar. Habib and Sam shared their priorities and gave an overview of their approach, touching on their report and recommendations on pulse oximeters and racial bias following a rapid review earlier this year.

Key aims for the Observatory are to:

• catalyse and facilitate high-quality, innovative evidence to develop meaningful insight
• develop and embed evidence-based insight into actionable recommendations for change
• support the implementation of recommendations and share good practice to facilitate change in the NHS.

The guests highlighted that COVID has shown the disparities around access, experiences and outcomes of ethnic health inequalities, which emphasises the importance of having an independent body to add value in this area.

The Observatory aims to be an active investigator into these issues, looking into the disparities and how other parts of society leads, contributors and enable these issues. Its five primary focus areas are:

1. Improving health outcomes – this will remain a priority and will focus on maternity and neonatal health outcomes and mental health and wellbeing.

2. Protecting the vulnerable – this will be a flexible theme, allowing the RHO to prioritise based on emerging issues, for example focusing on the impact of COVID-19 on diverse communities and vaccination uptake among healthcare staff.

3. Innovating for all ages – this will focus on digital access to healthcare/ethnicity recording data, and geonomics and precision medicine.

4. Creating equitable environments – this will focus on the role of healthcare architecture and leadership representation and accountability.

5. Partnerships and global working – this will focus on community and stakeholder engagement in the UK towards the above aims, as well as wider global partnerships.

Overheard during the webinar:

“It will be important to stay connected, to ensure the Observatory can cast an eye and provide support, so it all stays connected. Support around identifying and sharing proper evidence-based good practice would be really helpful from the Observatory. We are planning a stakeholder event to reflect on a year since the [regional] assembly was established, and I hope the Observatory can be part of this. There has been £1billion identified for elective gateways, and it would be useful to have support to ensure that health inequalities are considered as part of this funding.

These meetings are by invitation only. For further details, visit our website https://www.good-governance.org.uk/events/.

If you have any comments, questions or suggestions about these webinars, please contact: events@good-governance.org.uk