Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Advocates making a difference for hospital patients

Update from the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust:

Advocates are joining the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH) to improve the experience for patients by helping to identify and tackle any health inequalities.

SaTH, which runs the Royal Shrewsbury (RSH) and Princess Royal (PRH) hospitals, has created the role of equality, diversity and inclusion advocates to support and challenge SaTH in identifying existing health inequalities. They then develop action plans to tackle and eliminate such issues and are committed to addressing unfair and avoidable inequalities in patient care.

Work the group has been involved in includes planned improvements to signage at the RSH site and the Sunflower Lanyard initiative. The sunflower lanyard is a symbol that indicates a person has a hidden disability and may need extra help or assistance.

The aim is to ensure everyone at SaTH has a great patient experience, no matter their age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership and pregnancy and maternity.

Niki Walker who works as a Learning and Development Service Lead for a social housing group, joined the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Advocates Group after seeing an advert on social media.

She said: “You have the opportunity to review access to hospital services and provide feedback on how these might be improved.

“It could be anything from physical access to methods of communicating with patients, visual aids or targeted health campaigns. Generally, anything which would support patients and their families.

“Having a young child with additional needs myself, I have to think in diverse ways, which lends itself perfectly to this role in the advocates group.”

Jane Chaplin is a member of the EDI Advocates Group and has previously worked as a carer and volunteer. As well as attending the regular group meetings, which take place every month, the time she volunteers to the group varies as to when her specific knowledge and experiences arises.

She heard about the group from a friend who is an employee at SaTH. The friend thought her skills and experiences would benefit the group.

Jane said: “Being an advocate involves being prepared to discuss, support and be a critical friend. It is also to help the organisation provide meaningful support for users of the services provided.”

Claire Eagleton, Lead Nurse for EDI at SaTH, said: “The EDI Advocate Group was relaunched in April 2024 and is made up of diverse and passionate individuals with varied areas of interest.

“The group has been involved in projects such as the co-production of a patient information poster for abdominal aortic aneurysm screening, planned improvements to signage at the RSH site, the Sunflower Lanyard initiative, Veteran Awareness and stakeholder focus sessions reviewing services as part of the Equality Delivery System review.

“This year the group intend to be involved in further co-production with patient information and plans for additional patient focused digital projects, along with many other things that will improve service access and patient experience.”

Claire added that they are still looking to recruit more members. There are monthly meetings which can be attended either in person or online.

If you are interested in joining the group, please contact Claire at Claire.eagleton@nhs.net.