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Children and Young People staff pledge their PCREF support
April 2024
Colleagues from the Children's and Young People's Directorate gathered in Cambridge recently to look at how the new Patient and Carer Race Equality Framework (PCREF) could be implemented in their mental health services.
PCREF is a national plan that aims to help NHS organisations like CPFT improve how we serve people from communities facing racial inequalities. We know, for instance, that Black people experience higher rates of mental health conditions – but are less likely to get the help they need. This framework, recommended by the Mental Health Act review, will be mandatory for all NHS Trusts that provide mental health services and will form part of assessments by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
Children's and Young People's Clinical Director Venkat Reddy said: "We are committed to using the framework to reduce the inequalities of access, service user experience, and clinical outcomes in physical health services as well. During this session we identified some quick wins and long-term actions to address the racial inequalities. These included exploring the idea of importing ethnicity data from NHS spine to our SystmOne electronic health record; improving signage, letters, and interpreters to cater for multiple languages spoken by our service users; self-referral forms for young people to overcome any barriers associated with stigma in some families; and every service to identify key pathways where addressing racial inequalities could have a major positive impact."
"This is a fantastic start, but we would like to engage different racial and ethnic groups to co-produce solutions to barriers identified by the service users from these communities.”
Public Health Registrar Ramya Ravindrane, who is leading PCREF in the Trust, added: "There was great engagement from the CYPF directorate leadership team. The group was honest and brave in its discussions. Colleagues reflected upon organisation culture, practical steps needed to improve access, experiences and outcomes of care, and how to ensure this was a priority when services are under pressure.
"The next steps are to consolidate the learning from the table discussions to share back with the directorate. These will form the basis of discussions on specific areas of work to focus on for the coming year. These discussions will include working with patients, carers, and the wider ethnic minority community to ensure that their voices are the foundation of any work that takes place. Alongside this, colleagues made a pledge to take back their learning from the day on racism and racial inequalities in care to their respective teams to begin the process of organisational change.
"Going forward we’re hoping to have similar workshops with the other clinical directorates to support them in their journey to implement PCREF."
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