A piece of paper with a powerful purpose
Mr Rehan Khan, consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology, discusses how filling out your details when you attend a hospital appointment is helping us to identify and reduce health inequalities.
When we’re handed a little piece of paper at a hospital appointment and asked to fill in details like our ethnicity, I think there are a number of things that go through a person’s head. Some of these may include:
1. Wow, what an invasion of privacy - what’s it to you?
2. Great, another bloomin' form to fill out.
3. I’d be happy to fill this out but I don’t feel represented in these options.
While I totally sympathise with all of the above, I’d like to take the opportunity to persuade you otherwise
This little piece of paper - which thanks to the wonders of technology can also be populated online - has a powerful purpose. One of these purposes is to help us provide a more personalised care offering. By telling us about your background we can collate information around what health challenges you may be more likely to face. This means we can consider this information along with any other symptoms you tell us about when you visit us at hospital.
As many of you will be aware Covid-19 has widened health inequalities in England by disproportionately affecting people in those in the most-deprived areas and people from ethnic minority backgrounds. For example, in my line of work I know from experience that personalised care in maternity results in improved outcomes for mothers and babies, and understanding more about a person's ethnicity will help us to address the ethnicity-based disparities in maternity outcomes. By telling us about your ethnicity we can create a fuller picture around the links between healthcare and inequalities. More information means a greater understanding and evidence base for our teams to work on targeted solutions to help reduce these inequalities.
Works are in place to consider how we can improve the tick box information with regard to ethnicity. If, for whatever reason, you don’t feel represented please do feed this back our team. While these forms are a national provision and not something we can change locally, collecting your feedback will help give weight and instruction to enable the wider NHS system to implement these changes.
Finally, I’d like to assure you that as always the information you provide will be treated as part of your confidential NHS notes. The NHS has strict rules regarding data protection and your information will be carefully protected. This means it won’t be shared with any third parties. Of course, if you have any concerns regarding this then please contact our Patient Advice and Liaison Service.