National Voices

Today we are proud and excited to publish our new five-year strategy! 🎉    👉 https://lnkd.in/eUy-DbqA   Our strategy was developed collaboratively with our staff team, Board, our Lived Experience Partners, our members, as well as other key stakeholders from across the health and care sector. The document itself, and our aspirations for the next five years are far stronger due to the collaboration that helped to form them – we would like to thank everyone who was involved in our strategy’s development. Our strategy set out to review where we, a coalition of over 200 health and care charities could most add value to the problems currently facing the NHS, and to decide where best to focus. Our three interconnected strategic priorities are:  ⚖ End unequal access. 🤝 Transfer power to people and communities. 📈 Shift the measures of success. Our strategy document spells out the incremental improvements we will be looking to see if we are successful, and the overall strategic shift we hope will happen as a result. The ultimate prize of this strategy is a health and care service that better meets the needs of all neighbourhoods and communities across England, and for people and communities to truly be put at the centre of this. Our strategy is available in a few different formats:  📖 Our main strategy document  📄 Our strategy on one page  👁 Our strategy summary in Easy Read   📽️ A short video from our Chief Executive, Jacob Lant    To access these and read more, visit our website   👉 https://lnkd.in/eUy-DbqA

I cannot even begin to say how proud I am of the achievements of the National Voices team this year. All this impact, delivered by 13 people - just under 11 wte. Of course, the team leverages so much more value in contribution from our members, our associates and our Lived Experience Partners who are critical to keeping our work grounded in the real experiences and needs of people who use health and care services. It's a massive collective effort - and it is making a real difference to the people who matter most.

Our year in numbers 🔢     We have published our annual report for 2023-2024, and alongside it a series of images celebrating our year in numbers 🧮     To read our annual report 👉 https://lnkd.in/e5E5qD_c     For our year in numbers 👉  https://lnkd.in/eErxvG9h    We would like to take this opportunity to thank our staff team, volunteers, members, partners, funders and Lived Experience Partners for making our work possible.     Our influence ✨      We have continued to influence the health and social care agenda in England:    🤝 Supporting our members to have their voices heard    📢 Amplifying the voices of people with lived experience      We are proud of the impact of our work on the Primary Care and Dental recovery plans.      🚧 Both of these plans emphasised the need to improve access barriers for those who struggle the most to get care.     Our Lived Experience Partners ✨      We would like to thank our Lived Experience Partners for their invaluable contributions across our work.      They have been involved in over 40 events, sharing their knowledge and perspectives and co-facilitating conversations.     They have deployed their knowledge and expertise on co-production with senior leaders in health and care across England.      Our members  ✨      Our members are at the heart of all our decision making at National Voices, and we could not achieve what we do without them.      Find out more about membership at National Voices 👉https://lnkd.in/eAnwcpQg     Our members have told us these are the things they value most about their membership:      ▪️ Opportunities to engage with senior decision makers in health & care      ▪️ Opportunities to network with & learn from peers in the VCSE      ▪️Being able to amplify their organisation’s voice on issues which matter to the people they work with      Our reach ✨      The world of health and social care policy can move quickly.      We are proud of our reach across:      🗞️National and trade media   📱Social media   🖥️Our newsletters      Sign up to our monthly newsletter to hear more from us 👉https://lnkd.in/e-K3GUhE    Our operations ✨      We significantly shifted our focus on fundraising – with a new fundraising team with colleagues from across the staff team.      Read our ethical fundraising policy      https://lnkd.in/eSv6CXB2    To see a list of funders who have contributed over £10k    https://lnkd.in/efaz_gJh     Our team is small and mighty – we recognise the importance of having a job that fits around your life, rather than having to make your life fit around your job.      Read our workplace policies, designed with this in mind 👉     https://lnkd.in/eybiqyDJ 

A huge thank you to National Voices for inviting me to speak at their Unconference alongside Nuffield Trust and Pregnancy Sickness Support I had the opportunity to speak about the work Cysters does to advance women’s health, particularly for marginalized communities often excluded from healthcare conversations. 🌸 By challenging stigma, advocating for policy change, and centering lived experiences, we work to bridge gaps and create safer, inclusive spaces for all navigating reproductive and mental health challenges. We explored how we can collectively progress towards a more equitable healthcare system—one that actively dismantles systemic barriers, prioritizes intersectionality, and puts communities at the heart of co-designing solutions. 💪🏽💬 The event covered such important topics throughout the day, including: 💙 Ending LGBTQIA+ health inequalities ✊🏽 What it means to be anti-racist in influencing and campaigning as health and care charities 🌟 Barriers to healthcare for people with learning disabilities and their insights on having healthy lives 🔗 Supporting better access to care for people with diverse communication needs 💡 Unlocking the role of lived experience in addressing stigma and improving access to health and care ⚡ Accelerating progress on addressing women’s health inequalities 🗣️ Insights from the Race Equality Foundation's event, Confronting Racism in Health and Care: Lessons from the Racist Riots, and how charities can take action It was such an inspiring day, connecting and reconnecting with incredible individuals and organizations committed to building equitable and inclusive healthcare for all. 💖 #EquityInHealthcare #LivedExperienceMatters #Cysters #Inclusion #WomensHealth #LGBTQIAHealth #AntiRacism #HealthInequalities #Intersectionality #ReproductiveJustice #HealthcareForAll #BreakingBarriers Pavi Brar Jacob Lant

Down in London again, this time talking about health inequalities with National Voices #NVUnconference

Today I can say I attended my first ‘unconference!’ National Voices hosted an unconference on health inequalities, a topic I have invested much time exploring over the last 18 months. An unconference steers away from the traditional speaker/audience relationship, instead bringing facilitated discussion and participation from the attendees. It was a great way to network, share expertise, and learn from others. I’ve come away enthused with ideas about collaboration, partnerships, and the power of a collective force for change. Lots of great conversations about using evidence to underpin policy and influencing work (echoing our vision at Alzheimer's Society!) I’m really looking forward to the next 12 months, bringing evidence to the forefront to push for system-level change. Here’s to 2025!

Immensely grateful to Sarah Sweeney, Pavi Brar, Grace Haworth and the entire National Voices team for holding a joy-filled, hopeful space in their Health Inequalities Unconference earlier today🔥💚 My tireless, inspiring friend and collaborator Kadra Abdinasir, and I kicked off a fishbowl conversation on what meaningful anti-racist policy influencing and campaigning looks like for health and care charities. Brilliantly facilitated by Jacob Lant, attendees, including our fellow Charity So White organiser, Aqsa Suleman, led their own dialogue. From the need for organisations to cede their power to by-and-for organisations doing the most valued and relevant work for the racialised communities they're rooted in; to the duty we have as policy workers and campaigners to relentlessly and publicly disrupt the harmful, racist narratives we have seen perpetuated by the highest levels of Government - it's clear the sector has a lot of work to do. We cannot allow organisations to declare themselves ‘anti-racist’ while they distort the practice into extractive, short-term activity that harms the very communities they claim to advocate for. To see so many early career professionals in the room and in consensus should be cause for hope for us all ✨ Last month, the NHS Race & Health Observatory published its Seven Anti-Racism Principles 👉🏽 https://lnkd.in/e6jqaupb They’ll be self-evident for some, and likely brand new territory for many in our sector. If you’re new or unsure of this work, they’re a great place to start and a useful, guiding reminder of its importance. #NVUnconference #CharitySoWhite

Today, we are pleased to be launching our Equality Action Plan for the next five years. 👉https://lnkd.in/e_NCsSEd This has been developed after extensive engagement with the staff team, our trustees and Lived Experience Partners – we'd like to thank everyone who was involved. Our Equality Action Plan identifies the key actions we will take to make progress against 3 objectives: 1. Make National Voices a genuinely diverse & inclusive organisation 2. Advocate for an end to inequalities in health and care 3. Provide support and work to educate our members about the role they can play in bringing an end to inequalities in health and care Why is this work needed? 💭 Our mission is to advocate for more equitable and person centred health and care, shaped by the people who use and need it the most. However, our work takes place in a society with significant inequality. ▪️If you are a woman born into a poorer area of England, you are likely to die almost 8 years before women from richer areas. We also know that many minority groups receive worse care and therefore worse outcomes from care than they should. ▪️If you have a learning disability, you are almost 30% more likely to die prematurely because of an issue that could have been avoided by the provision of good quality care than if you didn’t have a learning disability. Often health and care is designed around the needs of majority groups, without adequately thinking through or responding to the needs of minority groups. It is vital that health and care services are designed in a way that is inclusive of everyone. While decisions that exclude groups of people from care are often made unwittingly, there is no doubt that stigma and prejudice have a role to play in dampening the political will to improve the welfare of some groups experiencing inequalities. Research from Equality and Human Rights Commission brings together people’s experiences of prejudice and people’s attitudes. 44% of British adults openly express negative feelings towards Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people, 27% towards immigrants, 22% towards Muslims and 16% towards Transgender people - this is an elephant in the room we cannot afford to ignore. Our Equality Action Plan sets out how we will contribute towards a more equitable health and care system, and a more just and fair society. Our plan also acknowledges the work needed on equality within the charity sector (where 92% of CEOs are White) and within National Voices. Alongside our Equality Action Plan, we have also published a statement setting out our ongoing and active commitment to anti-racism and anti-oppression , both within National Voices and externally. Read here 👉 https://lnkd.in/eRNz88kq

Today, National Voices’ Director of Policy and External Affairs, Sharon Brennan, spoke at the launch of Royal Pharmaceutical Society's new report, Medicines Shortages: Solutions for empty shelves, in parliament.   We were delighted to have direct involvement in the report, which explains how medicine supply chains are global and complex, with shortages caused by manufacturing problems and disrupted, less resilient supply chains.   Read here 👉 https://lnkd.in/egBQQAhw The report, backed by charities and patient groups, calls on the Government to create a national strategy to manage medicine shortages and to change legislation to allow community pharmacists to amend prescriptions when medicines are in short supply. Our members have told us people have rationed their medication or gone without entirely due to shortages, having huge health impacts.   Recommendation 15 is so important and one we worked hard to include: Develop cross sector protocols for shortages of life critical medicines. We also welcome recommendation 10: Further involve patient groups to support information sharing.   A number of our members, Cardiomyopathy UK, Diabetes UK, Pancreatic Cancer UK, Parkinson's UK, and Patient Safety Learning, also contributed to this important work.

'Government should publish national strategy to tackle medicines shortages' - says Royal Pharmaceutical Society. In its report ‘Medicines shortages policy: solutions for empty shelves’, published today, the RPS makes 20 recommendations to alleviate ongoing medicines shortages in the UK. Read more here | https://lnkd.in/eubGU9bF Charlotte Ansell Professor Liz Breen Sharon Brennan Sean Curley Mark Dayan Roger Fernandes Mark Francis Rick Greville james kent Michael Mulholland Claymore Richardson GAYLE ROBERTSON Mark Samuels Paul Fleming Martin Sawer Justine Scanlan Sukhy Somal Bruce Warner #medicineshortages #medicinesupply #supplychain #pharmacist #pharmacy