“You can’t tackle health inequalities without tackling the cultural and systemic factors behind them.” Dr Mona Ahmed on our bold plan for tackling health inequalities
We recently published our five-year Health Inequalities Strategic Plan, which sets out how we will create fairer, more inclusive and culturally sensitive mental health services, by placing racial equity and anti-racism at the heart of our ambitions.
In this Q&A with Dr Mona Ahmed, Associate Medical Director for Health Inequalities, she explains why this work matters, what the strategy aims to achieve, and how staff and partners will help us create real, meaningful change for our communities.
Why is tackling health inequalities such a priority for SWLStG right now?
“At our Trust we know that not everyone experiences the same level of access, quality, or outcomes when it comes to mental health care. Factors like poverty, racism, housing, and discrimination all shape people’s health.
“We also know that some groups, particularly patients from certain ethnic backgrounds, are not being reached early enough and therefore miss out on timely intervention and prevention opportunities. In addition, ethnicity can influence treatment outcomes – for example, some communities see less improvement following a course of talking therapies. This highlights the need to ensure our interventions are more culturally responsive and better tailored to the diverse populations we serve.
“This work is complex, and progress is slow – we know we need to do more across our five Boroughs.”
Can you tell us a bit about the new Health Inequalities Strategic Plan - and what it aims to achieve?
“This new plan sets out an ambitious programme to make sure that everyone, regardless of background, has equitable access to culturally sensitive, high-quality mental health services supported by strong partnerships, transparent data and a workforce empowered to make real change.
“The strategy places racial equity at the core of our work and focuses on three main pillars: equity in access, partnership and community engagement, and sustainability. Also built into the strategic plan is transparency and accountability: progress on access, experience and outcomes – broken down by protected characteristics – is routinely reviewed and publicly reported.”
How does this plan link to our wider commitment to equity, inclusion, and cultural capability across the Trust?
“They’re completely connected. You can’t tackle health inequalities without tackling the cultural and systemic factors behind them. Our work on anti-racism, inclusion and cultural capability all feed directly into the Health Inequalities Plan – they set the foundations for this work and are all part of the same aim; to make our care more compassionate, responsive, and equitable.
“None of this will work without our local community – especially voluntary, faith-based and social enterprise partners. We’re committed to even closer collaboration. For example, we’ve established a regular Health Inequalities Advisory Panel, bringing these groups together with experts by experience to co-design initiatives, target those most in need.”
What role will staff - especially clinical teams - play in helping to deliver this plan?
“Every clinician and every team have a part to play. Reducing health inequalities isn’t just about policy, in fact changing policies will have limited value if it fails to improve the experience of each person who comes into contact with our services.
“We’re asking staff to make every contact culturally capable and to take an actively anti-racist approach. This includes identifying who is missing or under-represented in our services, understanding why people may not be coming forward, and remove the barriers we may be inadvertently creating.
“Delivering anti-racist care also means naming and addressing bias and discrimination, choosing least-restrictive options, and co-producing care plans that reflect race, faith, migration/trauma history and individual cultural attitudes to treatment.”
What difference do you hope this work will make for patients and communities across south west London?
“We want to see more people accessing the right care at the right time, better experiences of our services, and more equitable outcomes, particularly for our Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities.
“We need to better understand and eliminate the barriers that our ethnically minoritised patients experience and minimise the delays they encounter in accessing services, we want to work with local voluntary and faith organisations deliver psychoeducation to help reduce the stigma around mental health.
“Our 'Adult Patient Journey Programme' is another initiative where we will be looking at improving the experience of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic patients when they are experiencing crisis as well as reducing the rates of emergency readmissions which we know to be disproportionately high within those communities.”
One of the key areas of focus in the Health Inequalities Plan is cultural capability. Why is cultural capability so important in mental health care?
"Cultural capability is essential in mental health because people’s experiences of distress and recovery are shaped by their culture, ethnicity, identity, and lived experience, especially racism and discrimination. However, we also know that sometimes our teams do not feel equipped to have those conversations sensitively.
“By building cultural capability in our clinical workforce, we can support our teams to have thoughtful and curious conversations about the impact of a person’s identity on their mental health and care. we know that ethnically minoritised people often have lower satisfaction, poorer communication, and more crisis-led care.
“Cultural capability tackles some of the causes of this including language barriers, unconscious biases, stigma, migration and trauma, as well as differences in health beliefs so that the care patients receive feels respectful, safe and collaborative. Hear more about our cultural capability programme.”
What to find out more about Cultural Capability? Read our interview with Dr Ranti Lawumi, a Highly Specialist Chartered Psychologist at our Trust about the progress we’ve made so far.
