Yorkshire and Humber Public Health Network

Up to 61% of English working age adults routinely do not understand health information – not just written, but also what health professionals tell them. This directly affects their health and wellbeing.

In response to this, during 2017 NHS England, Public Health England and Health Education England jointly ran a national health literacy demonstration site. It was based in the East Midlands with the following aims:-

• To raise awareness across the health and care system about the adverse impact of lower levels of health literacy
• To support changes in working practices
• To test whether improving population health literacy could also improve people’s ability to self-manage a long term condition.

The work has now concluded and has generated valuable learning for the whole health and care system. It has also resulted in the production of a toolkit of resources to support everybody within the system to adopt more effective approaches to health literacy.

This event will share the learning from this work and also provide attendees with a tour of the resources that have been produced. The delivery partner for this work (Community Health & Learning Foundation) will showcase some of the activities undertaken during the pilot. Delegates will also have an opportunity to think about how to use the resources to improve outcomes in their own areas.

Who should attend?

• Commissioners
• Quality and improvement leads
• Information producers and providers
• Policy leads for personalised care, equalities, long term conditions, nursing, primary care
• Public Health Specialists and Commissioners
• Making Every Contact Count leads and practitioners