Black Health Improvement Programme (BHIP) for Enfield Primary Care, NHS North Central London CCG and development of Enfield Caribbean and African Community Health Network

The Black Health Improvement Programme (BHIP) aims to increase awareness of the Black community in Enfield, to allow local GP practices to better engage with Black African and Caribbean patients and provide equitable, inclusive and accessible primary care services for this community.

The programme has been developed in response to a community consultation with Black African and Caribbean communities and healthcare professionals seeking greater insights into the Black community, in order to improve their health outcomes.

Based upon this evidence, Greater Manchester Health & Social Care Partnership (GMHSCP) commissioned the Black Health Improvement Programme (BHIP) to help redress long-standing health and wellbeing inequities which have existed for decades, and which were further exposed by COVID-19. BHIP applies and highlights evidence gained through research into the disparities in health outcomes across a number of health and wellbeing indicators.

It offers a robust tool for GP practices to improve outcomes of their patients from the Black community. The service offer a quality assurance service that provides awareness of a range of issues that impact upon the engagement of Black Caribbean and African people in relation to their health and wellbeing. As part of BHIP, registered General Practices and Primary Care Networks can access:

• A dedicated period of culturally appropriate education and training
• Access to a bank of video and audio materials across specific and prevalent health conditions found in the Black community.
• A helpline for advice and referral for targeted intervention or appropriate services.
• Access to posters and resources to display in your practice.
• Accreditation following training and assessment, with support to improve. This programme is offered to GP practices in Enfield free of charge, to assist services to develop and improve the health and wellbeing of Black African and Caribbean people accessing primary care. The Black Health Improvement Programme (BHIP) has been operating since early 2021 and commenced with several early adopters. The promotion consisted of promotional flyers, direct email to GP practices, CAHN weekly newsletter and information on the Primary Care website. The BHIP Programme is spilt into two parts, the first part is the one-hour training session, and the second part is the Accreditation journey, from Bronze to Platinum. The one-hour training session consists of several themes and has gone through various iterations to reflect various research, programmes, initiatives, projects and events that CAHN and its partners are delivering or working on. The one-hour training sessions are delivered to mainly those members of staff who work within the Primary Care sector (GP practices), however over time, attendees have included, staff members from across other health professions, e.g., Social Prescribers, Health Development Co-ordinators, Primary Care Network representatives (PCNs). The BHIP Programme is delivered by members of CAHN Education, Learning and Leadership Department (BHIP Team). The sessions are delivered at least twice a week to various clinical and non-clinical staff across Enfield borough. The current interactive one-hour training session, covers the following areas: 1. Black People - who are they? 2. Race, Racism, Institutional racism 3. Health Inequalities 4. Lived Experiences 5. Next Steps 6. Support and Resources 7. Other Information As a result of the one-hour training session, the following additional support is made available to the Practices via the BHIP Team:
• Practices are added to the CAHN Mailing list for the weekly CAHN Newsletter.
• Links to the weekly CATHIP and Healthy Heart sessions.
• Promotional information and links to the various CAHN Flagship events, research, projects, services, other community and CAHN events.
• Access to CAHN social platforms to promote recruitment opportunities. Most recently CAHN have received Continuous Personal Development (CPD) approval for the BHIP one-hour training session, this means that attendees can use the BHIP training session towards their learning. The BHIP Team (Education, Learning and Leadership Department), have delivered 94 one-hour training sessions during this period, and a total of 1215 clinical and non-clinical primary care staff including Social Prescribers, Link Workers, Health Co-ordinators, Primary Care Network Leads and GP Federation staff have attended one of the sessions during a three-year period (2021-2024). The BHIP programme encourages Practices to send as many staff as possible for the one-hour training session, therefore the numbers of attendees and the number of sessions per GP Practice may vary. All attendees are invited to complete a post evaluation feedback form and the two key measures used for these metrics is detailed below:
• The success rate of the one-hour training session
• The confidence of attendees in engaging in issues that influence Black experience. The BHIP Programme is constantly evolving, to ensure that the programme is reflecting feedback and the evidence from the monthly data metrics. As mentioned in the conclusion section above a number of issues that need to be addressed and these are detailed in this section below: One-hour training
• To improve the take up of practices across GM that have not yet attended a BHIP one-hour training session.
• To develop plans that specifically target localities, where the take up is low.
• To investigate the possibility of developing the one-hour training session as a webinar to increase take up.
• To develop an Online Survey to obtain impact stories and feedback from the one-hour training session. Accreditation
• To develop a more robust process to capture BHIP Impact Stories at every level of the Accreditation Programme.
• To create a more definitive timeline for Practices to go through the various accreditation levels.
• To Develop a webinar for the Silver Journey Accreditation workshop. General
• More communication and promotional materials, selling the benefits of the BHIP one-hour training and Accreditation programme.
• Offer the BHIP programme to other non-primary care staff at cost.
• Re-evaluation of the BHIP programme to identify the reasons for low take up across the whole BHIP Programme
• Develop a plan to look at the long-term sustainability of the BHIP Programme.
• Working in collaboration with GP practices that have attended the BHIP one hour training session, to develop a range of focus groups w, to gather data on the experiences of Back patients, whose Practices have been part of the BHIP programme.
• Learn lessons from the success of Pride in Practice Contract start date is 01/04/2025 and will expire 31/03/2026 with no option to extend.