Equality and Diversity Engagement

An invitation to a community engagement workshop in Essex

The NHS tries to ensure that there are no barriers to people accessing NHS services.

However, sometimes people can find it difficult to access healthcare and health services. This can be for a range of reasons, including age, disability, gender identity, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation.

The NHS organisations across Essex are working together to address this. We are arranging workshops to help us to understand where any barriers might exist and to identify what we need to prioritise in order to make it easier for everyone to access healthcare.

The attached flyer gives a series of dates and venues for workshops around Essex. Each workshop will have the same agenda, and the feedback from all the events will be pooled to identify what NHS organisations in Essex need to prioritise. We cannot meaningfully tackle inequalities without listening and engaging with people from all parts of the community – so would encourage you to come along to whichever workshop is easiest for you to attend.

Each workshop will be around two-and-a-half to three hours long, and light refreshments will be provided. You will hear about an initiative called the Equality Delivery System (EDS) that is being rolled-out across the NHS in England, and we will explain how you can be part of this new approach in Essex. There will be speakers who will help to identify the degree to which the NHS gets it right and discussions to identify where the NHS needs to work better with communities to remove barriers and erode health inequalities. You will have a chance to share your views, discuss with others how to make sure all parts of the community feel included and identify the issues which need to be addressed.

We will feed back to you after the workshops so that you can see the areas that will be prioritised for action by each NHS organisation in Essex.

We do hope that you are able to join us at one of the workshops across Essex that are shown on the attached flyer. All you need to do is decide which workshop you would like to attend, and e-mail, telephone or write to the contact details below by 19^th September or as soon as you possibly can, confirming your name, any organisation you may represent and which date/venue you wish to attend. Please also let us know if you have any specific requirements (such as any printed materials being made available in large print) so that we can ensure the event is fully accessible for you.

We look forward to seeing you at one of the workshops.

Please confirm your attendance to:

E-mail: public.involvement@nhs.net (NHS Mid Essex are co-ordinating returns for the events)

Phone: 01245 459395

Write to: Public Involvement Team, NHS Mid Essex, Swift House, Hedgerows Business Park,

Colchester Road, Chelmsford, Essex CM2 5PF