New Dialogue Data Review: Health and Social Care Inequalities
Download the report
Following the priorities set out in the Healthwatch Kingston 2024/25 annual report, ‘Unlocking the power of people driven care’, New Dialogue, the home of Healthwatch Kingston upon Thames (HWK), committed to a strategic review of our community engagement data from the past-5 years. The comprehensive review will shape our work tackling health inequalities by revealing patterns and themes among the experiences of different groups, communities and demographics within the borough.
This review, supporting the development of the Kingston Director of Public Health report 2025/26, takes a dedicated look at ethnicity, and the health outcomes among minoritised groups in Kingston, with the understanding that health inequalities are underpinned by the interconnected wider determinants of health: the individual, social and environmental factors. The review will share the voices of minoritised communities and their experiences of NHS and social care services.
Health Inequalities and Intersectionality
Health inequalities are unfair and avoidable differences in health between different groups of people. Health inequalities are about both the status of people’s health and the disparities in the care that people receive and the opportunities that they have to lead healthy lives.
It is widely understood across the health and social care system there are racial and ethnic inequalities in health. This means that there is a significant impact on health outcomes, access to care, and overall life expectancy for people from minority ethnic backgrounds.
Through an intersectional lens, these inequalities are seen as the result of overlapping factors, such as structural racism, socioeconomic inequality, language barriers, gender inequality, sexuality, disability, and immigration status, which combine to create compounded barriers to achieving equitable health.
Through an intersectional lens this review will begin to explore whether, and how the experience of health inequalities among communities in Kingston are exacerbated by racial and ethnic inequalities.
Methodology and reports
This report aims to bring together the insights and feedback shared with HWK from minoritised communities to better understand where there are gaps in understanding and supporting the needs of people from minority ethnic groups. The review focuses on eight main insight reports, with further highlights from the wider work of HWK.
Healthwatch Kingston insight reports and projects informing this review:
- Healthwatch Kingston ongoing Enter and View programme: Residential care, nursing homes, and supported living
- Healthwatch Kingston Enter & View Report: Kingston Hospital Food and Hydration
- Health and care needs of socially isolated, physically Disabled adults
- Early Years: The health and care needs of under-5s and their families report
- Healthwatch Kingston Including Communities: Engagement Report
- Healthwatch Kington Including Digitally Excluded Communities Engagement Report
- Healthwatch Kingston Care Workforce Wellbeing: Engagement Report 2023
- London Ambulance Service Strategy 2023–2028: Healthwatch Kingston Community Engagement Report and Recommendations
- Bereavement Services and Support in Kingston - Community Engagement Report
- South West London Bereavement Services and Support: Gaps Workshops Report
