Working with People and Communities to Improve Health Outcomes

Help the people you work with access healthcare services

Understanding how to work effectively with diverse groups can help you better meet the needs of the different people you work with. This two-week course from NHS England will show you how simple changes can create big improvements to people’s lives and transform their access to healthcare services.

You’ll take a strengths-based approach to understand how you can work with people and not systems. With this knowledge, you’ll learn how your work can have a bigger impact.

Understand how people have different experiences in their access to healthcare

You’ll unpack how different communities can have very different experiences of healthcare as you identify who faces bigger barriers.

With this knowledge, you’ll learn how to consider different perspectives in the design and delivery of healthcare services.

Explore inclusive engagement activities

To help ensure better care and efficient use of resources, you’ll delve into the inclusive engagement practices you can use in your context. With this understanding, you’ll learn the importance of making people feel heard when you engage with them.

You’ll also learn how to look at a diverse population and ensure equitable representation rather than equal representation.

Develop an awareness of implicit bias and underrepresentation

To further ensure the inclusivity of your engagement practices, you’ll explore implicit bias and how you can navigate this to break down barriers to healthcare access.

You’ll also discover the underrepresented groups in England and the strategies you can implement to ensure wider groups of the public are represented in healthcare.

By the end of this course, you’ll have the practical tools and knowledge to understand how to successfully involve people and communities in your work.

This course is primarily designed for those working in the NHS and wider health and care systems in the UK. This includes clinical and non-clinical roles.

You’ll gain the confidence and knowledge to create a more compassionate service to match with your own values of patient-centred care. You don’t need to have any background knowledge or experience to take part.

People who work for NHS organisations are eligible for a fully-funded upgrade on this course.

A partnership between the NHS and FutureLearn means that NHS or social care staff and students can receive a fully-funded upgrade of this course. Check the eligibility criteria.

To upgrade, please register via the NHS Leadership Academy Verify platform. If you have already registered on FutureLearn, please make sure you use the same email address when you use the Verify platform above.