The Disabilities Competency Programme, co-produced training and resources with disabled people to support health and social care staff make reasonable adjustments to services and communications.
Public Health worked closely with Real, ICM and DeafPLUS to put people with lived experience at the heart.
Outcomes included recommendations to contribute to shaping and designing access to health services and information, in collaboration with Primary Care teams. The project ran over 35 workshops with 60 residents and created a best practice guide. Action planning with Primary Care teams led to 14 practices creating reasonable adjustments.
Improving Access for All - Disabilities Competency Programme
Disabilities Competency Programme – Embedding Access for All
The Disabilities Competency Programme, co-produced training and resources with disabled people to support health and social care staff make reasonable adjustments to services and communications.
This project, initially Embedding Disabled Access Pilot (EDAP) was commissioned by Tower Hamlets Public Health in response to the disparity in health outcomes from Covid-19 and the lack of inclusion of disabled people in service delivery and information.
Commissioning Disabled People’s Organisations as part of the Anti-Racism and Equity programme for Tower Hamlets Together, Public Health worked closely with Real, ICM and DeafPLUS to put people with lived experience at the heart. Outcomes included recommendations to contribute to shaping and designing access to health services and information, in collaboration with Primary Care teams. The project ran over 35 workshops with 60 residents and created a best practice guide.
The pilot was innovative in the following areas:
- Modelling co-production with disabled adults in all aspects of the project - leading the agenda, identifying issues and making recommendations.
- Conducting Enter and View mystery shopping audits and advising health and social care staff how to enable better access to healthcare.
- Co-producing training content, participating in videos re-enacting common barriers, showing how to achieve positive outcomes for patients.
- Co-facilitating delivery of training for 223 staff during 2024-25 for GPs and health partners across the borough in PCN’s 1, 6, 8 and 5.
- Co-creating a guide containing practical recommendations for change to meet diverse access and communication needs.
- Contributing lived experience and personal testimonies.
- Creating a Self-Assessment Toolkit ( based on a cultural competency model) and working with 14 practices to respond to Enter and View feedback.
- Assisting 12 practices to produce Case Studies documenting reasonable adjustments
- Raising opportunities to embed developments at strategic meetings 2022-25
Including disabled peoples’ voices has become a core strategic deliverable for the council’s Public Health team. It has also become a priority for Primary Care Networks beyond the pilot project, showing its far-reaching impact. As a result, disabled peoples’ voices and sense of inclusion has been amplified across the council and its partners. Contact: Healthy Communities Team, Tower Hamlets Public Health
