By Lucy Selman, Associate Professor of Palliative and End of Life Care, Palliative and End of Life Care Research Group and Centre for Academic Primary Care, University of Bristol
Serious illness and bereavement affect us all, but our experiences of them are not equal. People living in the poorest areas of the UK are less likely to get the care and support they need if they become seriously ill or a loved one dies. They are also more likely to be socially isolated and lonely – which can be made even worse by serious illness or bereavement.
The Weston-super-Mare community network for health inequities is a new collaborative research project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and led by the University of Bristol, which aims to tackle these issues, focusing on Weston-super-Mare, a seaside town in the South West that is socioeconomically deprived but rich in terms of community assets.
Over nine months, the project will create a network which brings together, as equal participants, people with lived experience, health and social care providers, people providing community assets, including arts and culture initiatives, academics and public health experts. This network will work together to generate knowledge, commitment, capacity and outputs that will directly tackle inequity in end-of-life care and bereavement support and mitigate social isolation and loneliness.
We will be asking: How we can work together to tackle inequities? What creative approaches have the most impact in engaging, informing and supporting the local community? What datasets and methodologies can be used to describe and understand inequities in Weston-super-Mare and the wider region? What further research questions need to be answered, using which methods and data, to reduce in equities in this area?
Updates and outputs
We will be publishing updates and outputs on our website throughout the life of the project, which runs until July 2023.
In December 2022, we had our first network meeting. Around 55 people attended, representing multiple sectors and members of the public with a shared interest in tackling inequities in end-of-life care and bereavement.
The day was facilitated by Fran O’Hara from Scarlet Design who visualised key points from the discussions, which focused on identifying community assets and how they might be used to help people at risk of loneliness or facing obstacles to accessing support.
Another focus of the project will be co-producing events and activities for Good Grief, Weston – a festival about death, dying, grief and loss taking place across the town in May 2023, in collaboration with Good Grief Festival and Culture Weston. Everyone in Weston-super-Mare and the surrounding area is welcome and community groups, businesses and other organisations are invited to take part – we hope you will join us and be part of the festival, which coincides with Dying Matters Awareness Week.
Our next meeting is on 20 February 2023. If you would like to come along, please register here.
For more information about the project, visit the Weston-super-Mare community network website and follow us on Twitter @WsM_Community.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful for the support of collaborating organisations including:
- Healthier Together – Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire Integrated Care System
- Arts & Health South West
- Culture Weston
- Humans of Weston CIC
- NHS England South West Integrated Personalised Care
- North Somerset Council
- Pier Health Group
- Race Equality North Somerset
- National End of Life Care Intelligence Network
- University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust
- Vision North Somerset
- Voluntary Action North Somerset
- Weston Hospice Care
