Health inequalities advisory support at Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust (KMPT)

How we worked with KMPT?

After supporting with the delivery of a health equity seminar to the Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust (KMPT) Board, Unity Insights was commissioned to provide advisory support on health inequalities. This included working with the Business Intelligence team, the Improvement team and operational staff members to embed health inequalities analysis in the reporting of the trust strategic programmes. The activities conducted included:

• Initial assessment: engagement with the KMPT to identify the datasets, information and intelligence available which could be utilised for health inequalities work; assessment of the data quality (completeness and accuracy) and any required data curation.
• Support with the health inequalities analysis: working jointly with the BI and Improvement teams to define the analysis goals and objectives, to agree on metrics and desired visualisations, and to review proposed design and draft visualisations.
• Engagement with the different directorates to understand the needs of the delivery teams, how they used available reports and dashboards but also to collect feedback on the proposed approach and to ensure alignment throughout the project.

The health inequalities visualisations were created using both Excel and PowerBI and the analysis was conducted using descriptive and statistical analysis.

Strategic alignment woven into existing strategic programmes and embedded in operational reports to ensure strong engagement

Data quality assurance, focus on identifying data gaps and opportunities and where possible to simplify data collection processes

Iterative development: to drive impactful changes for operational and clinical teams whilst working to deliver an ambitious long-term vision

Identifying metrics and areas to prioritise to drive better access, experience and outcomes for patients at KMPT

The analysis conducted provided an overview of differences in key performance metrics based on ethnicity, gender and deprivation and whether these were statistically significant. Thus, it highlighted potential priorities which could be explored and addressed by the trust in the medium-term but also documenting data limitations (such as level of completeness, changes in metric definition or ongoing service transformation likely to confound the analysis) so resources can be committed to improving these.

What value did this work add?

The Unity Insights team, with its wide experience designing, conducting and interpreting health inequalities analysis, was able to help shape the trust’s ambitions and to translate them into an iterative and measurable plan.