New projects greenlit to target ongoing challenges
Jan 25, 2017
The latest three new projects we've backed through our Health Innovation Fund are taking on difficult and long-standing local health issues, from poor mental health to care for long-term conditions.
Despite efforts to address the significant inequalities black people in Lambeth experience in mental health, there remains a lack of trust between the system and the community. Few people are treated early through primary care, more than expected are treated in hospital as inpatients and recovery outcomes are poor.
We’ve awarded £163,000 to help the Black Wellbeing Partnership tackle this issue by bringing together communities and people in the healthcare system to break down the barriers and help reduce long-standing inequalities.
Unequal access to quality care also affects the 15 million people in England who live with long-term conditions. Their care is often inadequate, leading to poor use of healthcare resources and bad experiences for patients. We’re providing £97,500 to the King’s College London GKT School for Medical Education and Performing Medicine – an award-winning programme of arts and health at King’s Health Partners – to create a research study which will look at arts-based learning in long-term conditions for medical students. The study looks to change approaches early in the lives of clinicians, improve communication skills and equip them to manage stress and anxiety better.
In another bid to make the patient experience better, we’re supporting our partners at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust to improve wayfinding in the Trust. Because of its long history and growth over the years, the Trust expands over several sites, which are often large and complex. This means finding services can be difficult, especially for patients with complex treatment plans and multiple appointments. We’re awarding £29,000 to create a new 3D map that will help patients and others navigate the spaces and find what they need more easily. Using ‘virtual reality’ and digital technology, the Trust will start by developing a 3D map of its outpatient facility at St Thomas’ Hospital. The map will be able to ‘take’ patients up lifts and flights of stairs, recreating the real wayfinding experience more accurately than traditional solutions.