13 October 2000
The King's Fund is to lead a drive to boost the professional standards of health advocates in London. The aim is to ensure people from ethnic minorities have proper access to NHS services.
The health think tank is launching a £1m programme to set up accredited training courses, develop quality standards and build a network for advocates currently working with ethnic minority communities. The announcement was timed to coincide with the publication of a report commissioned with the London office of the NHS Executive. This showed that the advocacy service is vital in preventing ethnic minorities receiving worse health care than everyone else. Advocates, usually community representatives, inform people about NHS services, help patients and families make decisions and work with professionals to ensure health care is culturally sensitive.
But the survey also revealed that many schemes operate on precarious short-term funding, with unpaid volunteers, few of whom receive formal training.
Greater London Authority chairman Trevor Phillips said the NHS had to be a service for everyone. 'The ambitious aims of the NHS have yet to be achieved because so many people from diverse communities do not have their needs adequately recognised by professionals,' he said. 'This scheme is a way of helping health practitioners do their jobs better and serve all of London's communities better.'
PFoct2000
