Tackling Causes and Consequences of Health Inequalities: A Practical Guide

Addressing health inequalities is a key focus for health and social care organizations. This book explores how best frontline health workers in areas of deprivation can address these problems. Aimed at doctors and their wider multidisciplinary teams, this book provides key knowledge and practical advice on how to address the causes and consequences of health inequalities to achieve better outcomes for patients. Considering the psychological, financial and social aspects of well-being as well as health concerns, this book offers a concise but comprehensive overview of the key issues in health inequalities and, most importantly, how practically to address them. Key Features Comprehensively covers the breadth of subjects identified by RCGP’s work to formulate a curriculum for health inequalities The first book to address the urgent area of causes and consequences of health inequalities in clinical practice. Chapters are authored by expert practitioners with proven experience in each aspect of health care. Applied, practical focus, demonstrating approaches that will work and can be applied in ‘every’ situation of inequality. Provides evidence of how community based primary care can make a change.

Table of Contents:
Contents Foreword by Michael Marmot Introduction Part One: Setting the Scene An Insight from the Frontline An Introduction to Health Inequalities A Multi-level Approach to Treating Social Risks to Health for Health Providers A Tale of Two Cities – Hull and York. Part Two: Knowledge and Skills Our Patients and the Benefit System Fuel Poverty and Cold-Related Ill Health Child Safeguarding and Social Care Domestic Violence and Abuse Substance Use: Our Patients, Drugs and Alcohol Addressing Smoking Cessation in Areas of Deprivation Safer Prescribing: The Threat and Challenge of Caring for People with Chronic Pain Persistent Physical Symptoms Social Prescribing: Connecting People for Health and Wellbeing Why do People not Engage with Healthcare? Managing Difficult Conversations Motivational Interviewing Person-Centred Care Trauma-Informed Care Building Resilience Through Self-Care Medical Advocacy: The Duty of Physicians as Advocates Part Three: Populations and Groups Child Health Tackling Health Inequalities in Adolescence Understanding and Responding to Complexity in Young People Addressing the Health and Wellbeing of Young Carers Women’s Health and Health Inequality Men’s Health Ageing Unequally Improving health and healthcare experiences of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities? Engaging with the Health Issues of Gypsies and Travellers The Health and Wellbeing of Asylum Seekers and New Refugees Homeless Healthcare Veterans’ Health Working with People in Contact with the Criminal Justice System and in Secure Environments Mental Health and Primary Care Management of Complex Psychiatric Conditions Part Four: Successful Models of Learning and Practice A GP Curriculum for Health Equity Examples of Innovative Service Models across the UK Widening Participation in Medical Education

About the Author :
Dr James Matheson Dr James Matheson graduated from St George’s, University of London in 2009. He trained in Lancashire and Cumbria before moving to work with Hope Citadel Healthcare, a Community Interest Company which provides primary care in areas of concentrated disadvantage. He has worked overseas and has published in the area of humanitarian disaster response, teaching around this subject at St George’s, and holds the Diploma in the Medical Care of Catastrophes. Dr Matheson is passionate about addressing causes and consequences of health inequalities, working as a General Practitioner and teaching and training the next generation of GPs to guard the health of our patients. He is a visiting senior lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University and, through the Shared Health Foundation, teaches on a number of courses from undergraduate to postgraduate level on subjects around deprivation medicine, health inequalities and the social determinants of health. Dr John Patterson Dr John Patterson is Medical Director of Hope Citadel Healthcare, a Social Enterprise working within the NHS, running practices and walk-in centres in hard-pressed neighbourhoods around Greater Manchester. They currently run nine practices serving a population of 31,000. Dr Patterson is lead for Focused Care, which supports the most vulnerable and needy households. Dr Patterson also works within Oldham CCG. His role initially concentrated on Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention (QIPP) and Medicines Optimisation. Building on previous great work and working with an exceptional team, the CCG has seen a reversal of the largest per capita prescribing spend in the country as well as significant improvement in the quality of prescribing. From 2018 he has taken over the role of Chief Clinical Officer When not at work he is busy getting in trouble with his wife by re-enacting famous Irish Rugby victories with their four willing children. Dr Laura Neilson Laura Neilson works in Greater Manchester trying to reduce health inequalities. She set up Hope Citadel Healthcare 10 years ago when she was a medical student. Hope Citadel provides GP services in areas of deprivation, currently holding 3 CQC outstanding awards and running 9 practices. Laura also runs the Shared Health Foundation, an organisation funded through philanthropic donations. Shared Health Foundation pilots innovative approaches to reduce harm from health inequalities and currently delivers work for; young people who are self-harming, families living in temporary accommodation, health literacy for parents of under 5’s and a advocacy for young carers. Together with the great team she works with developed Focused Care, a project based in 50 GP practices in Greater Manchester which makes invisible patients visible, unpicks the story behind the story an allows our hard-pressed households to thrive. Laura also works in A&E as a regular doctor! She won the HSJ ‘Rising Star’ Award in 2016 for her "inspirational style" and teaches on health inequalities. She has three boys and is therefore somewhat of an expert by experience in Minecraft and Harry Potter.

Review :
This book is written for primary care providers, namely GPs, NPs, PAs, LCSWs, DMDs, and clinical psychologists, who can become familiar with the specific knowledge and skills required to provide quality care in very challenging environments of deprivation. This important book is especially relevant given increasing worldwide income disparity, the imposition of austerity measures, and the current COVID-19 pandemic. It offers primary providers knowledge and skills that can also be used in the design and implementation of care models for the large numbers of displaced people and refugees who are affected by conflict, climate change, and/or loss of economic stability and security. Anna A Helm, BS, MPH(Multnomah County)