New patient group at Peterborough and Cambridgeshire hospitals to represent minorities

The group – representing people from minority backgrounds in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough – is working with the North West Anglia Foundation Trust which runs Peterborough City, Hinchingbrooke and Stamford and Rutland hospitals, as well as outpatient services in Ely and Doddington.

Rebwar Hussein, engagement officer with Healthwatch Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, the independent champion for health and social care, has helped promote the group and recruit members.

He is based in Peterborough where he has lots of contacts with many local communities in the city, including different cultural, refugee and asylum groups.

Representatives from Solutions 4 Health, Near Neighbours and EAST as well as hospital users with African, Latvian, Roma, Lithuanian, Chinese, Caribbean, European and Asian backgrounds have been involved in the new group so far. But people from all communities are welcome to get involved.

The group has already helped to change the hospital trust's policy over Ordinary Residency (OR) which checks the identity and eligibility of patients to receive NHS hospital services for free.

Following a complaint that these pre-appointment checks adversely impacted a patient from an ethnic background, the trust – in consultation with the new group – has rewritten its policy on the OR process.

Patients with new service appointments more than four weeks away will be able supply information in advance – cutting the need for on-the-day checks by about two-thirds.

“The aim has been to develop a system that is smarter and less invasive, offering more privacy to patients and more discretion to staff doing the checking,” said Simon Howard, the trust's equality, diversity and inclusion lead.

“Any time trust policy is reviewed its impact will also be assessed and, if there is likely to be a negative effect on people from BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) groups, it will be brought to the new group to see if we can find practical ways to solve the issues.”

Future topics for the co-production group may include:

. Patient issues stemming from the UK’s departure from the European Union.

. Working with the trust's midwifery research teams in a bid to lower mother and child mortality rates which nationally vary substantially between ethnic groups.

The group's next meeting us in Thursday, December 19 at 2pm in the Denis Bracey Room, Learning Centre, Peterborough City Hospital, PE3 9GZ, and people wishing to become involved are invited to come along.